TPC-Journal-V4-Issue4

The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 4 369 & Singh, 2012; Wang, 2008). The author is a 37-year-old father of an elementary school-aged son diagnosed with a specific form of autism, PDD-NOS, and is married to the child’s biological mother. The author and his wife also are parents of a daughter 19 months older than their son. The author was a school counselor and cofounded a nonprofit advocacy organization with his wife to support parents of children with developmental disabilities, particularly autism, prior to enrolling in doctoral studies. Reflexive exercises and simultaneous collection and analysis. Before beginning this research, the author engaged in epoche as an early reflexive exercise. Patton (2002) and Creswell (2006) wrote that epocherequires researchers to fully document and describe their personal experiences with the studied phenomenon in order to increase their awareness of how they are biased, and to be clear about the ways they are personally affected by the research process and eventual results. The author also engaged in reflexive journaling. He made journal entries after each interview and included reactions to participants, inclinations about potential findings, and thoughts and feelings about the data collection and analysis process. Member checking. Member checking is the researcher’s ongoing consultation with participants to test the “goodness of fit” of developing findings, and Lincoln and Guba (1985) cited it as a key strategy for establishing trustworthiness. Member checking requires involving participants in the research process in order to ensure that the researcher accurately communicates their intended meanings when outlining overall themes. The member checking process for this study took place at two points—during interviews (e.g., asking for clarity and confirming understanding) and after interviews (e.g., sharing transcripts for review and validation). Results Data saturation was achieved for each of the three research questions. Results from the interview data yielded three themes. The fathers described in detail the rewards of fathering children with Asperger’s disorder, the challenges of fathering children with Asperger’s disorder, and the ways the fathers cope with those challenges. The fathers described the most rewarding aspects of fathering their sons with Asperger’s disorder as experiences in which they could experience clear communication with their sons. The fathers described the most challenging aspects of fathering their sons with Asperger’s disorder as those related to behavioral symptoms. The fathers described their coping strategies for those challenges as activities that allowed them to experience respite and acceptance. Quotations from the fathers elucidate the identified themes. Clear Communication as Most Rewarding All of the fathers discussed the various ways clear communication with their sons shaped the rewards of this lived experience. The symptomology associated with autism makes this description logical. Individuals with Asperger’s disorder may not experience the verbal language communication barriers that others face with different forms of autism, but individuals with Asperger’s disorder can have great difficulty reading and interpreting social cues. The feelings associated with clear communication patterns, especially when communication barriers exist, can yield feelings of relief and reward. Participant D, whose son was 6 years old, expressed the rewards in terms of his son effectively communicating his affection and love. The thing I love about him most . . . like I’ve said before is his reciprocal love to people which is sort of, you know, not typical for Asperger’s children. But, you know, he loves to hug and those sorts of things.