TPC-Journal-V4-Issue4

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 4 367 1. What are the rewards of being the father of a child with autism? 2. What are the most significant challenges associated with being the father of a child with autism? 3. In what ways do fathers cope with the challenges of raising children with autism? Recruitment The author utilized a typical case sampling method for the study. Inclusion criteria of participants were fathers over 18 years old who spoke and understood English and had a child between the ages of 4 and 20 with autism. There was no incentive or compensation for participating. Miles and Huberman (1994) articulated that typical case sampling represents the average example of a particular phenomenon of study, which was useful in this case because it afforded the researcher the ability to study this phenomenon on an individual basis. After the study received approval from the Institutional Review Board, the author sent 68 recruitment letters to parents and guardians of children currently receiving mental, rehabilitative, and behavioral health and support services from the local site of a multistate human service agency. The agency served children and adults diagnosed with addictive diseases, autism, and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Of the 68 letters, 54 went to parents whose children were receiving services specifically for diagnoses within the ASDs, as per the DSM-IV-TR . The letters asked potential participants to contact the author directly in order to confirm study eligibility. The author sought a sample of at least five participants in order to reach data saturation (Polkinghorne, 1989), although Boyd (2001) regarded 2–10 participants as sufficient to reach saturation. The letters yielded four inquiries from potential participants, all of whom were eligible. However, one participant was excluded from the study because of the inability to coordinate an appropriate interview time. The author identified one additional participant through snowball sampling recruitment, which is a method of expanding a study’s sample size by asking current study participants to recommend additional participants (Babbie, 1995; Crabtree & Miller, 1992; Dane, 1990). Therefore, the author conducted four interviews. Participants The author recruited participants from a small town in the northeastern region of the United States. This rural town has a predominantly White population. The recruitment letters asked for fathers of children with autism without specifying a particular diagnosis, and yielded four men reporting to be the biological fathers of sons diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder. The participants were all White, ranging from 36–59 years old. Their sons ranged from 6–16 years old and had been diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder between the ages of 3 and 8. Table 1 highlights descriptive information about the study’s participants and their sons. Table 1 Description of Participants Participant Age Marital status Highest level of education Occupation Age of son with Asperger’s disorder Son’s age at diagnosis A 59 Divorced Post-secondary certification Oil professional 14 8 B 37 Remarried Master’s degree Meteorologist 16 6 C 54 Married Master’s degree Historian/ Stay-at-home dad 11 7 D 36 Married Doctoral degree Professor 6 3 Note. Mean participant age = 46.5 years; mean age of son with Asperger’s disorder = 11.75 years; mean age of son at diagnosis = 6 years old