Health Care Needs of Adolescents with Autism
Health Care Needs of Adolescents with Autism
Four themes representing the challenges the parents’ experiences included concern with medications, frustrations with healthcare services, recognizing secondary health issues, and the need for resources and services. Parents of adolescents with autism locating information about Autism, trying to understand the necessary medications that are needed and prescribed, and experiencing minimal social support from health care providers. Parenting a child with an autism spectrum can be very stressful because of the number and nature of symptoms associated with the disorder and because of the child’s inability to communicate effectively, difficulty in learning, and inappropriate and sometimes aggressive or violent behavior. Other parenting challenges include the child’s ongoing dependency as well as the need for parents to be the child’s advocate within the school, medical setting, social settings, and to plan for the child’s future.
Adolescents with autism have the same basic health care needs as adolescents who do not have autism however they tend to experience higher levels of stress, decreased physical activity, unsafe sexual activity, depression and suicide. The report reads that there is a need to describe these experiences and to develop services and interventions to improve the management of the adolescent’s health care needs given the increasing numbers of children diagnosed with autism.
A study was done to form a perspective of the parents’ managing the health care needs of adolescents with Autism because this method focuses on the experiences of individuals. This was accomplished by keeping a journal of recorded thoughts, biases, and knowledge regarding Autism. The second step consisted of reading through the interview transcripts and then drawing out significant statements.
Parents said that they were responsible for learning about autism without help from their health care providers after
Four themes representing the challenges the parents’ experiences included concern with medications, frustrations with healthcare services, recognizing secondary health issues, and the need for resources and services. Parents of adolescents with autism locating information about Autism, trying to understand the necessary medications that are needed and prescribed, and experiencing minimal social support from health care providers. Parenting a child with an autism spectrum can be very stressful because of the number and nature of symptoms associated with the disorder and because of the child’s inability to communicate effectively, difficulty in learning, and inappropriate and sometimes aggressive or violent behavior. Other parenting challenges include the child’s ongoing dependency as well as the need for parents to be the child’s advocate within the school, medical setting, social settings, and to plan for the child’s future.
Adolescents with autism have the same basic health care needs as adolescents who do not have autism however they tend to experience higher levels of stress, decreased physical activity, unsafe sexual activity, depression and suicide. The report reads that there is a need to describe these experiences and to develop services and interventions to improve the management of the adolescent’s health care needs given the increasing numbers of children diagnosed with autism.
A study was done to form a perspective of the parents’ managing the health care needs of adolescents with Autism because this method focuses on the experiences of individuals. This was accomplished by keeping a journal of recorded thoughts, biases, and knowledge regarding Autism. The second step consisted of reading through the interview transcripts and then drawing out significant statements.
Parents said that they were responsible for learning about autism without help from their health care providers after