Parents’ Resources for Facilitating the Activities of Children with Autism at Home

Abstract

In the United Kingdom, and in many societies, whatever level of support might be available outside the child’s home, the primary carers for children with autism are often their own family members, usually their parents. Consequently, parents’ resources for supporting their children’s capacity to engage in activities are of considerable practical importance and merit careful analysis. Indeed, there is evidence from a randomised control study that a joint engagement programme can have a positive long-term effect on children’s abilities (Kasari, Gulsrud, Wong, Kwon, & Locke, 2010). A general aim of parents’ participation in children’s activities (including neurotypical children) is to enable children to achieve more than they could unaided. The importance of such co-participation is captured by Vygotsky’s influential idea of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). This refers to a region which is just beyond a child’s current sphere of competence but into which the child can move through the involvement of a more experienced peer or carer. For Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of learning, it is not merely that the child can achieve more with support but rather that such supportive encounters are fundamental for development. He states that the ZPD ‘awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 90). The term ‘scaffolding’ (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) is a related metaphor that is widely used in learning environments to describe the supportive conduct.