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.
Highlights
When families are expecting a child, expectations grow up around them
These kinds of proposals and studies of Mexican parents of children with disabilities are not enough, since each one only sets out to monitor one of the variables under study within the target population. This has led us to design an assistance program in which other variables are taken into account; a program targeted at mothers of children with disabilities, as we aim to assess the effects of its implementation in three areas: family functioning, understanding, and acceptance of disability
By implementing the assistance program, we were able to observe the lack of information about the disabilities of their children and the shortcomings in emotional and social support provided to them by health institutions
Summary
When families are expecting a child, expectations grow up around them. In all likelihood, the child’s health and. Scant theoretical and practical research has been carried out in Mexico which would contribute to optimizing their efficiency (Acle-Tomasini, 2013; Sánchez, 2006; Sánchez, Acle, de Agüero, Jacobo, & Rivera, 2003; Vélez, 2001) These programs have centered on holding workshops to promote power and authority among fathers and/or mothers of children with mental handicaps (Saad, 2000); talks aiming to encourage positive changes in parents’ attitudes towards their children with Down’s Syndrome, and to solve issues caused by these children at home (Blas, 2005); workshop-courses for parents of children with emotional and behavioral disturbances, providing parents with strategies that let them develop skills that benefit their child’s socio-affective development (Arias & Tello, 2006); promoting parental support to help those with special educational needs to integrate into the social and school environment (López, 2007); workshops that inform and counsel parents on their child’s disability through development and learning support strategies, helping them to identify stages of grief (Delgadillo, 2007); workshops for parents of children with mental handicaps to raise awareness, provide information and guide families on aspects of behavior, norms, values and personal attitudes, to promote advocacy and self-advocacy (Beltrán & Pacheco, 2007); workshops for mothers of children with special educational needs, which facilitate the self-discovery process by way of identifying their emotions and how these affect their bodies (Ávila, 2008); and workshops aimed at furthering parents’ understanding of family and its structural components, so that they can amend the structures and organizations that hinder its development (Mateos, 2010). This has led us to design an assistance program in which other variables are taken into account; a program targeted at mothers of children with disabilities, as we aim to assess the effects of its implementation in three areas: family functioning, understanding, and acceptance of disability
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