Social Support Study Of Autistic Children And Their Families

The purpose of the study is to understand the basic living situation and needs of autistic children and their families.Author uses the literature research, field observation and depth interview methods, through field contact with autistic children and their families, combined with literature to get data for this study. Data collection is from five autism rehabilitation agencies and the Beijing Autistic Children Rehabilitation Association in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. Using questionnaire, interview outlines, and outline of the focus group interviews author did interview with autism parents. Author selected 30 families from the interviewed families to do the basic information analysis.Using social support theory, through analysis of emotional support, care support, material support, information support, rehabilitation, education, support of autistic children and their families they have got and they want to get, author wants to get comprehensive study of the survival status, social support status and their social support needs. The author selected typical aspects from the macro, meso and micro levels of social support system to analyze social support status and needs of the autistic children and their families. The author found that social support status is not enough on the macro-level, and has different levels on meso-level, and mainly relies on non-formal social support on micro-level.Based on this, the author proposed some social policy suggestion:government should carry out epidemiological investigation of autism; should cover the early screening of autism into the public health areas; and should strengthen efforts to spread knowledge of autism. Various departments should coordinate and cooperate in order to solve the rehabilitation services problem of autistic children and address the employment, care issues and rehabilitation services for older autistic children and support training of professionals for autistic children.