A Needs Assessment Study of the Priorities of Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autism is a neurological disorder with increasing prevalence, which affects various dimensions of the children and their families. Raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder implies significant stress levels and changes in family functioning. So far, the majority of studies have dealt with parental difficulties, whereas those focusing on parental self-reported support needs related to autism are fewer. The impact of autism is multidimensional as it involves not only to the financial, social, and professional spheres but also to the physical and mental health of parents. In addition, Parents of such children are faced with the child’s lack of social reciprocity, which not only hinders learning but also limits emotional sharing. In this context, a complex dynamic of self-maintenance of the disorder can become established, in which problems of parental adjustment and the clinical expressions of the child’s disorder influence each other. One of the challenges of professionals training and appropriate rehabilitation services to parents of children with autism spectrum disorders is to identify relevant targets for supporting them. Parents may express a need to be helped to manage their fear about their child’s future. Therefore, the best way to ensure a consistent course of care is to consider carefully the parental support once the diagnosis is made by accurately assessing the needs of fathers and mothers. This study aims to identify and prioritize the needs of parents of children with autism.
This research is a needs assessment descriptive survey. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 250 parents of autistic children from four autistic clinics in Tehran, Qom, Karaj and Qazvin-Iran. The research instruments were a researcher made questionnaire and Children with Autism Scale developed by Ayong, Cohen, Wright and Ellison (2008). The reliability of the researcher-made questionnaire (33 categories) was assessed through the application of the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and equaled =0. 97. Internal consistency reliability of Children with Autism Scale, assessed via Cronbach's alpha, was calculated to be 0.97, with the internal consistency reliability of each subscale including social skills, attention switching, communication, and imagination being 0.93, 0.89, 0.92, and 0.88 respectively. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and Fridman test were used to analyze the data.
The result of Fridman test indicated that the parents agreed on the utilization of all rehabilitation and educational categories. They placed more emphasis on the following categories: awareness of children's cognitive and communication abilities with average ratings (2.83), needs and priority needs of parents of children with autism, including awareness of children with motor disorders with average rating (26.86), the obsessive awareness of children with average ratings (26.43) and awareness of children's memory capacity with an average grade (25.51).
Accordingly, it can be concluded that parents of children with autism prioritized physical and psychological needs, warm and intimate relationship between mother and child, improving social interactions and detecting behaviors of undetected in their children over other needs.