published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85).

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Speech Pathology and Audiology, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-45).

This study examined the effects of a support group for parents of autistic children on the parents' reported stress levels.

The purpose of this study is to identify the main stessors that parents experience when raising an autistic child and parents' perceptions of what can help them cope better. It is important that parenting stressors and coping strategies are identified as they relate to the age of the child with autism.

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has traditionally been understood and treated bio‐medically. However, bio‐ecological and eco‐systems theory, as well as a vast body of literature, suggests that ASD has a systemic impact, unique to each context. This study aimed to understand the systemic and ecological experiences of parents’ to children with ASD in the South African context with regard to ASD and ASD intervention. Eight parents to children with ASD were interviewed using a semi‐structured interview schedule. The data were analysed using deductive thematic content analysis. The study found that, in the South African context, both Indigenous and Western Knowledge Systems impact on parents’ experiences of having a child with ASD. It further found that ASD had a systemic impact, and that current ASD intervention failed to target the needs across the system. Lastly, it found that stigma originates from both Indigenous and Western Knowledge Systems, and that information about ASD is of great importance to parents in the South African context.

It was identified that there was little published research into the lived experience of parenting a child with autism that utilised a qualitative approach. There was a paucity of material in the literature, beyond single parent accounts, for a nurse to turn to develop a beginning understanding of the experience. There was also little for a parent to compare their own experience with. This study of the lived experience of parenting a child with autism provides an exploration of the experience within the framework of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. Initially nine parents were interviewed and the resulting transcripts analysed. This analysis was taken to four focus groups to allow the parent's voice to remain active in the refinement of the analysis. The parents reported a strong resonance with the analysis and the discussion fell silent. The experience identified was not that of a series of activities but profound changes to the self of the parent. This is considered in the discussion in the light of the existential challenge to the parent's being posed by the demands of parenting a child with autism. Chaos theory and its mathematical applications are considered as a potentially fruitful way to pick up the conversational relation with the question of, "what is the lived experience of parenting a child with autism"?