Research On Social Support Intervention For Children With ASD In Ecologically Integrated Contexts

With the deeper understanding and research of ASD, the research perspective has transferred from deficit-based approach to integrative service delivery model approach, addressing providing children with ASD with social support to promote their social integration under more realistic and naturally ecological contexts. We need to regard children with ASD as real living individuals with a more comprehensive and insightful point of view. It’s necessary to observe and evaluate each child with a comprehensive and integrated perspective, presenting their abilities and states as they really are. In order to help them reach their max potential development, we need to base on their strengths to offer social support and individual education plan to them. Rather than to make them "normal", our goal should focus on improving their natural living environments and interpersonal relationships, providing social support for their lifelong development and social integration.Based on thoroughly comprehensive analysis of the present literature, this research rooted in reality needs and practice experiences, puts forward the research question: How to provide children with ASD with efficient social support under ecological social integrated contexts. Focusing on this question, the researcher takes the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, carries out the following researches:1. Investigate the parents, teachers and peers through interviews and questionaire in order to study the present social support conditions for children with ASD in China. The findings show that the overall condition is not satisfied, lacking the efficient social support system. The resources are dispersed, the quantity and quality of professional staff are poor, and the family’s burdens to raise the child with ASD are heavy. The social resources in school system and communities are not fully used.The findings show that teachers don’t have an accurate understanding of the importance of social support during the social integration process to children with ASD. The children with ASD don’t get enough social support from their teachers and peers in the school system. The real situation is embarrassing, many children are just staying in the classroom but doing nothing. The teachers are facing many problems during this process either, such as stresses, poor professional support and low self-efficacy. The teachers say that they need the guidance and support from policy, systems, methods and strategies.The peers hold an overall positive attitude to children with ASD in the survey results. It shows consistency in cognitive, emotion and action tendency dimensions. The peers are willing to help children with ASD in their class. The high acceptance is not affected by the gender or whether they are class cadres.The social support from the family and community for children with ASD is not satisfied. Both the family support and community support are facing many difficulties, such as policy, systems and professional resources. It’s urgent and necessary to provide efficient family support and community support to children with ASD.2. Based on the personal research experiences in the USA and in China, combining the literature study and investigation findings, the researcher attempts to put forward the "Ecological Comprehensive Social Support Intervention Model". This model focuses on the on-going development of the children and the needs of their families, which regards children as on-going living individuals, attempts to fully utilize all kinds of available resources and interpersonal interactions in children’s natural living contexts to create a respectful, kindly, harmonious and helpful environment.The researcher selects the peer support dimension and designs a peer training course to preliminarily verify the model. The outcome appears to be positive. The researcher interviewed the peers and teachers after the course. The findings show that the peers hold a more positive attitude after taking the course and change their misunderstanding of the child with ASD in their class. The four teachers who involved in this course say that the course is practical and operative. It will help typical developed children in school to get a better understanding of the children with ASD and promote the peer relationship.3. After the preliminary verification of the model, the researcher uses the model to provide intervention services to two children with ASD, following the cases for more than two years, tries to help them integrate in the school, family and community via appropriate social supports. The parents, teachers and peers are also supported during the process. The results show that not only the children get the growth and development of abilities and social emotions, but also their parents, teachers and peers gain developments and changes. They are all satisfied with this result.4. Through the summary and reflection of the intervention study, the research extends and clarifies the content and operational models of the previous model, putting forward three sub-models, which are "Parellel-Expanded Social Support Model", "Hierachical Social Support Model" and "Core-Axis Social Support Model". They are exploratory and periodical achievements for social support intervention practice for children with ASD in China.According to all these researches, finding that providing the social support for children with ASD in the ecologically integrated contexts is a very complex and urgent practical problem. It illuminates us to combine the advanced experiences from the USA and the reality of China together to explore a suitable solution for this problem. The "Ecological Comprehensive Social Support Intervention Model" raised up in this research proves its applicability and ecological validity via the preliminarily application. We need to further improve the model in the future research, in order to enrich the theory and practice of the ASD intervention field in China.