Parents of children with autism: Exploring their resiliency

• Main Author: Minez, Kinney Dune B.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2015
• Subjects: Parents of children with disabilities; Autism in children; Resilience (Personality trait); Special Education and Teaching
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5101
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study showed that in spite of the difficulties parents encountered as a result of having a child with autism, they can still be resilient given the fact that they have strong family belief system, intact connection with different kinds of supports such as family, friends, institution, and even social media. Moreover, communication and problem solving in dealing with the adversities made them resilient as well. A purposive sampling of respondents was used in this research. The researcher identified 32 parents of children with autism between 3-8 years old or preschoolers. The 32 parents were then administered the RS 14 scale to determine the level of their resiliency. Based on results five parents were chosen for the case study. The study also presented Walsh's Family Resilience association with the Resiliency Scale. There are questions from the RS 14 that fall within the sub-constructs of Walsh's Family Resilience Model. It is imperative that the parents must be provided support by means of engaging in trainings and seminars, financial support, institutional support, familial and affinity support, and even social media can be a support system that will help encourage these parents to overcome adversity. Policy makers can propose therefore to seek out ways on how to improve a parent's resiliency and that in turn would also increase their family's quality of living, further increasing the child with autism's aspect in improving their lifestyle and helping them out.