Autism in Spain: parents between the medical model and social misunderstanding

Abstract

The parenting of children with autism has traditionally been explored through its negative aspects, but researchers have started to look for different parental experiences focusing on the positive experiences, family resilience and strengths of children with autism. A cross-cultural analysis considers that cultural understanding of autism reflects the way different societies and parents understand it, the variation in meanings of health, illness and disability and not simply the amount of information about autism. In a small-scale exploratory study in Spain, 8 parents from different families were interviewed to explore how they experienced their children’s autism and their perception of society’s response to it. Findings suggested a general lack of information about autism, parents’ trouble finding strengths of autism and a division of roles and responsibilities that seems to place a disproportionate load on the mothers.

Points of interest

• The way that a society understands autism affects how parents experience their sons’ and daughters’ autism.

• This paper examines the experiences of parents of children and young people with autism in Spain through semi-structured interviews.

• The participants of our study did not feel included in Spanish society since many people have misconceptions about autism, do not know how to help and stare at them and their children.

• The parents of our study seemed to share a medical view of their sons and daughters and only one of them could think of a positive trait of his son, besides being loving.

• Both fathers and mothers who took part in the study agreed that mothers bear all the responsibility for caring and deciding the therapeutic and educational measures adopted.

Keywords:

• Autism
• parental perceptions of autism
• cultural meanings of disability
• parents’ coping resources
• cultural understandings of autism
• parenting of children with autism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.