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Parent-Reported Barriers and Enablers of Strengths in their Children with Autism

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Abstract

The majority of autism research has a deficit focus; however, researchers are beginning to adopt a strength-based approach to understand autism. This study adds to the evolving strengths research by identifying factors that may help or hinder children’s expression of strengths in the home, school, and community environments. Parents of 102 children with autism, aged 5 to 17 years, reported on the factors they perceived enabled their child’s strengths at home, at school, and in the community, as well as the barriers that hindered their child’s strengths in these same settings. Using content analysis, parents’ open-ended responses were coded into a series of subcategories that formed categories of barriers and enablers across each setting. According to parents, supporting children was the greatest enabler of strengths in the home and school environments, while an inclusive and supportive community environment enabled their child’s strengths within the community. Adaptive and well-being barriers had the most impact on strengths at home; social, emotional, and behavioural challenges were the greatest barrier of strengths at school; and attitudes, expectations, and a lack of community understanding hindered children’s use of strengths in the community, according to their parents. Parent identification of the factors that enable or prevent children’s expression of strengths provides possible avenues for intervention to support children to show their strengths at home, at school, and in the community.

Highlights

  • A range of enablers and barriers impacted child’s expression of strengths.

  • Supports, modifications and inclusivity enabled children to show/use their strengths.

  • Child and environmental factors were identified as barriers to children’s strengths.

  • Barriers inform where supports are needed to foster children’s strengths.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank parents for their time, participation and support of the current research.

Author Contributions

M.C.: designed and executed the study, analysed the data and wrote the paper. D.A.: collaborated with the design of the study, the analyses and the write-up.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Autism Centre of Excellence, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Megan Clark & Dawn Adams

  2. Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Megan Clark & Dawn Adams

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  1. Megan Clark
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  2. Dawn Adams
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Correspondence to Megan Clark.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the National Statement of Ethical Conduct in Human Research. This study was approved by the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee.

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Participation in this research was voluntary and Informed Consent was obtained from all participants.

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Clark, M., Adams, D. Parent-Reported Barriers and Enablers of Strengths in their Children with Autism. J Child Fam Stud 29, 2402–2415 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01741-1

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