Navigating the Challenges of Autism: A Caregivers Perspective

Abstract

After completing high, I joined a community based home for children and young adults with special needs as I waited for the opportunity of joining college. I chose this particular occupation because I had a passion for caregiving. I chose this particular field out of passion and interests and not because of any gains whatsoever. Generally, people do not understand or have ideas on how to deal with children with special needs, and in most cases, even their kins are overwhelmed with these particular classes of people. One case that caught my eye was of a child who was autistic, and I became interested in this particular boy. The autistic boy was in his world but a keen eye to him. One could notice that he was a special kid who did things differently. My interaction with this boy exposed me to some challenges of understanding autism and a lack of experienced service providers who had the optimum experience in dealing with children with autism. I learnt more about autism, and my interaction with this boy taught me so many things, especially on interactions. By the time I left the place to pursue my course in college, I had noted that raising a child with autism can prove to be stressful and raising such a kid is different from raising any other kid. My experience with autism and my perspective as a caregiver may provide specific components conveying how the experience of raising a child with autism could be different than that of a caregiver raising a child without autism. The experience shaped me by being an eye-opener to some truth about language. Autism is characterized by deficits in communication, repetitive patterns of behaviour, a deficit in communication and impairment in social interactions and delays in the normal development of a child (Gall, et al., 62). Parents of the affected ChildChild and caregivers need to be sensitized on handling and incorporating the kid into the societal setup. These people need to be given skills relating to service providers regarding raising children with autism. The biggest challenge I had with autism was trying to understand what it is. I possessed limited knowledge of working with autistic children, and the parents did not have that knowledge either. I didn’t know the best way to handle the boy or what to do when he locks himself in his world and such. At first, it was a very frustrating experience seeing nothing I could do but sit and watch. When I tried to reach out and get information on the same, I realized that the healthcare systems' services were inadequate, leaving it to trial and errors. Among the things that I learned were of essence is communication. In some cases, parents of autistic children leave their children to the care of service givers who do not have desirable knowledge on handling autism (Gall, et al., 62). The dilemma that I found myself in and the literature that I came across focused mainly on diets. In the end, there arise conflicts because the service givers may not understand this particular condition, and the parents may tend to feel that the caregivers are not performing their best to facilitate the comfort of these kids. Such is still the conflicts in schools whereby the parents may feel that they are being left out in key decision-making areas (Bekhet, Abir, and Mauricio Garnier-Villarreal, 824-825). Fortunately, through the right communication, one could avoid such stresses. By trying to find about the challenges the primary caregivers experience, it was evident that there was a wide gap. But although some studies provided this particular topic, there was still limited literature available. Some of the materials addressed the challenges of other issues but not care and services (American Nurses Association, 22-27). In some instances, children with autism may tend to throw tantrums, wander away from their caregivers and are not in a position to read social signals (Huang et al., 1386-1387). Others may not be in a position to communicate what they want. Therefore, some of the basic requirements are left out, like bathing, clothing and eating (Huang et al., 1388). Such will make autistic children stick out and appear more handicapped than they are. In this respect, therefore, the...