Examining differences in stress, family quality of life, and coping strategies in parents or guardians of autistic children that attend mainstream versus special schools.
Aoife Dunphy is currently completing a level 9 degree in MSc Psychology and Wellbeing in Dublin City University. Aoife is conducting a research project under the supervision of Dr Aoife McNicholl. The project is “Examining differences in stress, family quality of life, and coping strategies in parents or guardians of autistic children that attend mainstream versus special schools”.
This research is looking at how autistic children’s education settings impact parents through their stress levels, family quality of life, and coping strategies. It will explore if differences exist depending on the type of school, either mainstream or special, that your child attends.
Aoife is looking for parents and guardians of autistic children to take part (the term guardian for this study implies that the person is in an acting parenting role for the child and solely makes the legal decisions for the child) so she can collect data from your subjective experiences to better her understanding on the topic and add to the research that already exists.
The survey is completely anonymous and will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Firstly you will be asked for your consent to show that you are willing to take part in this study. Then you will be asked for some background information. This will include asking about your child; their school type, autism severity based on the formal diagnosis that you received, and any other diagnoses. Additionally, you will be asked for some information about you as a parent, like relationship with the child (mother, father, guardian), gender, and age. After that you will be asked some standardised questionnaires which have been used in previous studies when working with parents of autistic children. These will measure parental stress, family quality of life, and coping strategies.
If you need any additional information please contact aoife.dunphy2@mail.dcu.ie or you can contact her supervisor Dr Aoife McNicholl at aoife.mcnicholl@dcu.ie.
If you wish to participate in the above research, please click on the following link – https://dcusurveys.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dhCah9V6jpLNFwa
