A Survey of Information Source Preferences of Parents of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

For parents of children with an Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), high quality, easily accessible information and a strong peer network can be the key to raising a happy, healthy child, and maintaining family well-being and emotional resilience. This article reports the findings of an anonymous survey examining the information source preferences for 935 parents of individuals with ASDs in North Carolina. Data indicates that parents show similar information seeking patterns across the age spectrum, that availability of information (as indicated by overall information source selection) decrease as children age. It also shows that parents rely heavily on local sources of information, preferring them to nonlocal sources (such as the internet) for many types of information.

Re‐situating information poverty: Information marginalization and parents of individuals with disabilities

“…Instead, it is about the everyday life and parenting information needs and practices of people who share a uniting facet of identity (which is, at times, related to health). Because intersections (Crewshaw, ) among disability, race, and gender impact everyday information needs and practices (Gibson, Kaplan, & Vardell, ), the information worlds (Jaeger & Burnett, ) and everyday life information needs of mothers of people with disabilities often differ somewhat from those of other mothers (Walker, ).…”

How do parents of children with ASD use information grounds to seek for ASD‐related information?

“…Compared to American parents of children with ASD (Gibson et al, 2017;Gibson & Kaplan, 2015), Chinese parents of children with ASD have similar information needs on independent living, puberty, policy and regulation, and language development. But they are in lack of official information sources such as national organizations, website and so on.…”

“…For parents of children with ASD, their health information behavior run through the whole process of raising children. Research has found that parents of younger children with ASD pay more attention to physical growth and education information, they communicate more with doctors and teachers, and their information sources decrease as their children grow up (Gibson et al, ). Parents of older children are more concerned about independent living ability, job training and higher education.…”

“…Parents of children with ASD also face great emotional and financial pressure (Gibson et al, 2017;Lai & Oei, 2014;Wang, Michaels, & Day, 2011). Mothers have higher pressure than fathers (Dabrowska & Pisula, 2010).…”

How does health happen in public libraries? Ethical and emerging issues

“…Goytia et al (2005) investigated public libraries' capacity to support cancer screening in underserved communities to reveal significant attitudinal barriers on the part of the library staff. Gibson, Kaplan, and Vardell (2017) found that "libraries were the least frequently selected source of information" for parents of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Similarly, Flaherty, Tayag, Lanier, and Minor (2014) found that not all public libraries provide credible information in response to the question "do vaccines cause autism?…”