Family Needs of the Autistic Adolescent

Abstract

The plight of autistic children has long brought forth efforts from the professional and lay communities to understand their needs and to try in some measure to provide treatment and education. It has only been in the last decade that the special needs of the families have been widely recognized. DeMyer (1979) has documented some major needs of families whose children were pre-school and school age, and vignettes of family needs in adolescence and adulthood. A literature review of research during the 1970s (DeMyer, Hingtgen, & Jackson, 1981) uncovered no systematic surveys or studies of family needs when the autistic family member reached adolescence. Reported in this chapter is a pilot survey of family needs and problems as the parents stated them. Because we wished to compare the adolescent period with other life periods, we also inquired about family needs during the autistic person’s preschool, prepuberty, and adult years.