A case study of three mothers of children with autism undergoing early intensive behavior intervention

Abstract

Although the stigma and discrimination against individuals with disabilities are still ongoing concerns in South Korea, the demand for special education services has continued to increase. Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention, known as EIBI, is often referred to as the most scientific and effective approach to significantly establish and develop socially significant skills of children with ASD. To gain optimal results from the EIBI services, the role of parents is especially important in expanding childrens behaviors and skills that are learned in structured one-on-one therapy sessions. Without parent involvement in intervention, children with ASD may not be able to generalize these learned behaviors into larger or different settings. Although numerous studies examined the effect of the intervention on the individuals, only a few focused on how culture shapes the understanding and management of autism and EIBI within Korea context. The overarching aim of this study is to look into the lives of families of children with ASD and how they experience the child's disability. As this study explores the lives of families undergoing EIBI, I examined their lives within EIBI context.

The research questions for the study are as follows. 1. How do parents perceive the child's disability and the intervention process? 2. How do their perceptions on the disability and the intervention process impacted intervention outcomes?

To conduct this study, three 3 years-old children with moderate to severe ASD, their mothers and EIBI therapists were recruited and selected by using purposeful sampling. Each family was visited three times when all family members were present, with the time of stay averaging 2.5 hours. Then main caregivers, who were all mothers, and therapists were all interviewed. A thematic analysis followed through the collected interview data, observational data, assessment evaluation, centers evaluation of the childs performance and the mothers personal notes on the child. The result demonstrated that mothers acceptance of childs disability depended on the severity of childs symptoms. Mothers perceived that EIBI is a treatment approach to improve specific social and cognitive skills rather than a treatment to improve the overall development of the child. Moreover, since it was difficult for all the family members to participate in the intervention process, mothers implemented the behavior techniques alone in the house. As as result, all children with ASD in this study demonstrated generalization issues. The findings can be used as a reference to professionals in South Korea who can support parents with their parenting knowledge, attitude and practice and EIBI professionals who can collaborate with families to implement early behavioral intervention.