Exploring the Causes of Autism: A Closer Look at ASD Symptoms - Essay Sample

Introduction

The genetic topic under review is Autism spectrum disorder, which is mainly diagnosed at a young age. The disorder depicts symptoms of difficulties in communication as well as impairments in interests and socialization. As such, a child with autism may experience problems when relating to peers and building interpersonal relationships. Their poor socialization skills make them suffer as they are often viewed by their peers as being socially abnormal. The actual cause of autism is being researched, although, over time, it has been associated with the uncaring character of a mother resulting from retreating into autism. The condition impacts parents, siblings, and society at large in the form of embarrassments, worry, and anger (Hobson, 2016). The following paper seeks to analyze a study that was carried out to determine the extent of the impact of autism on families.

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The hypothesis of the research was to examine the magnitude of the impacts caused by autism in families. As such, the perception of the parents and siblings regarding autism was put into consideration. From their point of view, the research should be geared towards empowering these families both psychologically and socially (Hartmann, 2012). Again, the study was aimed at enlightening social workers about this disorder and how to handle it.

Testing of the hypothesis was carried out using qualitative research. Eight participants were selected through convenient sampling. In this case, audio interviews were recorded whereby each participant was asked eight questions are attracting a gift of ten dollars (Hartmann, 2012). The ten-dollar gift was in a bid to motivate them to participate in the study. Confidentiality of the information provided by the client was highly upheld whereby the researcher locked each audio tape in a filing cabinet that no other person would access it. Again, the identity of the participants was not revealed during the study. These participants also signed consent forms which were locked up in the filing cabinets. Upon completion of the research, all the audio recorded tapes were destroyed by the researcher

The experiments revealed that regardless of the societal perception, sibling participants are not embarrassed towards their sibling with autism. However, the sibling participants felt rejected by their parents due to the diagnosis of autism in their sibling. The research also revealed that grandparents were, in most cases, not supportive of the affected family. Sudden or gradual sense of relieve, grief, sadness, and shock are depicted by the affected family upon discovery of their child's autism diagnosis (Hartmann, 2012). Despite the differences in the amount of parental care given to children with autism compared to their normal counterparts, findings were different. Future topics associated with autism were developed out of the research, which is relevant to society at large.

The study raises various questions among them, being why the research employed a small sample size to represent a large group of individuals who are either directly or indirectly affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder. The study involved only eight participants who should not be relied on to represent masses of people affected by autism ad, especially in today's world. Another question regarding this study is how a researcher whose sibling has autism be objective (Hartmann, 2012). The researcher will tend to be subjective since one of the family members has autism. Therefore, the relationship that the researcher has with the person with autism in their family automatically attracts bias.

References

Hartmann, A. (2012). Autism and its impact on families. Retrieved from https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1035&context=msw_papers

Hobson, R. P. (2016). Autism and the development of mind. Routledge.