TITLE:
Fostering Awareness and Acceptance of Disability in Mexican Mothers of Autistic Children
AUTHORS:
Alfa Celene Rea Amaya, Guadalupe Acle Tomasini
KEYWORDS:
Mothers of Children with Disabilities, Autism, Knowledge of Disabilities, Acceptance of Disability, Family Functioning
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.11,
August
25,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The
arrival of a disabled child is overwhelming to any family; it is often a
shocking event that impacts the life cycle of the family. Several studies
highlight the support that must be provided to parents of children with
disabilities. In Mexico, this support is not often promoted in a successfully
way neither in official nor private institutions. The purpose of this study was
to assess the effect of a special assistance program carried out with five
autistic children’ mothers, aged between 28 and 43 years (Mage = 35.4).
Attention was focused on: family functioning, knowledge and acceptance of
disability. We used a mixed design with a concurrent triangulation; the study
was non-experimental, ex post facto,
descriptive, and cross-cutting. The main findings show that this program had a
positive effect on mothers and several changes regarding the studied variables
were observed. It was important to highlight that there was one unexpected
result: the personal and group empowerment that enabled the participants, on
the one hand, to acknowledge themselves as women in a couple relationship and
not only as mothers of their disabled child, and, on the other hand, to form a
network of mothers who can look for legal and administrative protection for
their autistic children.