e likely to respond to it as if it is almost a death warrant. There is so little understanding of autism, that parents are overwhelmed.
This shock is exacerbated by the fact that parents are often abandoned right at the beginning of the process. Parents repeatedly noted that they were given the diagnosis and not really given any help after that. They were essentially left on their own to figure things out. Many parents said that they received little help from professionals during the early stage of dealing with the problem (Simons, 1987).
One pressure that is seldom mentioned in the literature, but is a real one is the financial impact of having a child with special needs. There are several subsidiary problems associated with this. The child may not be able to obtain the services needed, or desired. The family may be forced to rely on services that are available to them through the public school system, or may have to rely on their own ability to learn and implement techniques associated with different systems.
For example, a mother described her efforts to obtain applied behavioral analysis services for her son, Matthew. Initially the family decided that any Lovaas program was too expensive for them. After problems with local programs (actually a TEACCH program), the family focused on ABA again. They got workshop help through the Rutgers center and started working with the child themselves. In order to address the financial problem, they attempted to obtain ABA services through the school district, but have had an ongoing battle to get that funded (Sheeana, 1999).
This problem in obtaining effective services from school districts is an ongoing one in the United States. Donna and David Cattell-Gordon (1998) described their difficulties in obtaining support from the child's school program and their eventual decision to open a pilot school and resource center themselves. They were simply unable to obtain suppor...