Autonomy And Social Work To Enhance The Involvement Of People With Autism

Autism has existed for a long time, but it has not been highly valued. In recentyears, with the constantly emerging of related news, the group with autism begins togrow into the public view. While the problem and related influence have far beyondour imagination.This study takes the development of autonomy as the main theme. By adoptingqualitative research method, the author participated and observed daily lives of theautistics from one autism organization in Beijing, and then did some in-depthinterviews with three professional social workers, three special education teachers.The paper aims to understand and analyze the status of autonomy of the autistics andthe possibility of promotion from the perspective of individual “self” integratingfunctions and support of the external environment.This study found that the combination of the theoretical framework of individualand external environment is basically applicable to the analysis of promotion ofautonomy. For individuals, people with autism have independent consciousness, andthey are potential in behavior ability, learning ability, discern ability, self-controlability, which provide a fundamental guarantee for the development of autonomy. Interms of environment, the interview does find that people are used to focus on thesymptoms of autism, and usually ignore the needs and potential of the autistics, whichhas done a lot of constraints on the development of autonomy. There exist a viciouscycle between the individual and the environment.Based on the data analysis and practical experience, the author thinks that thesocial work has the absolute advantage in the development of autonomy. Finally, theauthor puts forward the idea of social work intervention.