WhatsApp as a Source of Support for Parents of Autistic Children

Abstract

SPARISK Support Group is a WhatsApp support group which offers parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who enrol their children in a water therapy programme a platform to discuss various issues regarding caring for their autistic children. Advanced growth in technology has improved the prospect for these parents to share information and provide support. A qualitative phenomenological design was used in this study to explore the support these parents offered each other through the use of WhatsApp as a social media support group. Convenience sampling was used to select four participants who had either a child or children diagnosed with ASD who were between the ages of 7 and 16 years old, had been involved in the support group for 6 months, and lived in Penang, Malaysia. Data analysis discovered five emergent themes: (a) types of supplement and food suitable for autistic children, (b)positive experiences, (c) feeling glad, (d) informational support and (e) emotional support. Findings indicate giving the right supplement and food to autistic children and relating autistic children’s positive experiences while undergoing the water therapy programme were the main functions of the group, and having water therapy coaches answering their doubts as a valuable resource. It is suggested that the use of a social media support group on WhatsApp may provide continuous support to parents of autistic children, suggesting that the formation of similar groups on other social media platforms.

Online Social Support and Psychological Well-Being of Caregivers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Online information from social media is beneficial because parents get valuable information regarding treatment for children. For example, parents get information about intervention through web-based video calls and WhatsApp introducing parent training to educate children with ASD (Aboo Bakar & Aboo Bakar, 2019;Azer et al, 2018). Therefore, children's problem behavior is solved, reducing parental stress, and increasing well-being (Choi & Noh, 2020;Dahiya et al, 2022).…”