A family of a preschooler with disabilities comes to have unique experiences because of the child and special requirements to meet. Because such families have special requirements to meet, their demands-based family support services should be provided...
A family of a preschooler with disabilities comes to have unique experiences because of the child and special requirements to meet. Because such families have special requirements to meet, their demands-based family support services should be provided to achieve the goals the services. One of the factors that determine such requirements is child development period. That is, the requirements can be varied by his/her age. So, family support services should consider the periods. From this perspective, entire life development should be placed into consideration and the support service programs by development period should be prepared. In this context, the infanthood with disabilities should be also considered as an important development period. Furthermore considering that the baby needs more interaction with his/her family and more reliance upon his/her family, it is critical to support families with special needs during this period.
Therefore, this study was initiated to comprehend the requests of support services for families of children with disabilities. Comprehending the requests becomes the basic data for providing effective support services to family of infant with disabilities.
This study was carried out with 118 mothers whose children (3 to 6 in full age) were receiving special education provided in Seoul and Kyunggi Province. A questionnaire was employed to find the basic information about the research participants (6 questions) and about the needs of the support service for family of preschooler with disabilities. For the composition of the questionnaire, Family Needs Survey (FNS) developed by Baily and Simeonsson (1988), was used.
This study brought out the following findings.
First, more support services, which mothers with a preschooler with disabilities recognized, were requested for preschooler with disabilities-family than for infant with disabilities-family. When their requests were more looked into, we see that they demanded the sub-sectors of request in the order of importance; ‘needs for information’, ‘community services’, ‘needs for support’, ‘financial needs’, 'family functioning' and ‘explaining to others’. The requests of support services that mothers of a preschooler with disabilities were aware of were same in the order for both infant with disabilities-family and a preschooler with disabilities-family.
Second, Paired t-test was carried out to find the difference in the requests for the support services, which mothers with a preschooler with disabilities were aware of, for infant with disabilities-family and a preschooler with disabilities-family and found that there was a statistically significant difference between two family types. More specifically speaking, more requests of support services for a preschooler with disabilities-family were made by mothers who recollected the period when they nurtured their infant with disabilities. As for the sub categories of the requests, there were significant difference between two periods in ‘needs for support’, ‘explaining to others’, ‘community services’, and ‘financial needs’.
Third, One-Way ANOVA analysis was implemented to know the requests of support services for both infant with disabilities of disabilities-family and a preschooler with disabilities-family by degree of disability. The results showed that there were significant differences by the degree in both periods (infant with disabilities childhood and preschooler with disabilities childhood) for the requests of family support. Sheffe Post Hoc test found that mothers of preschooler with disabilities recalled their child’s infanthood in assessing the request of support by degree of disability and the differences were assumed to have resulted from the group difference ("severe" and "light"). In addition, the difference in the requests for preschoolers with disabilities-family by the degree was confirmed stemming from the difference of two groups (“normal” and “light”).
When two groups that showed difference were more looked into, mothers of preschooler with disabilities recalled their child’ infanthood and assessed the requests for support and thus significant difference was found in following sub-categories: ‘needs for information’, ‘needs for support’, ‘community services’, and 'financial support.’ Also there was found a significant difference in the following sub-categories of the request of support service for preschooler with disabilities-family: ‘needs for support’, ‘financial support’, and 'family function.’
In this study, the requests of support services for infant needs for support-family and preschooler with disabilities-family that mothers of preschooler with disabilities were aware of were examined and the existence of difference in the requests between two groups. In addition, this study looked into whether there was a difference between the requests of support services for infant with disabilities-family and preschooler with disabilities-family by degree of disability that mothers of preschooler with disabilities. This study looked into the requests made by mothers who recalled their child’s infanthood in assessment and the assessed results were compared with the requests of support services for preschooler with disabilities-family in order to draw in implications. From these perspectives, this study has significance of providing the basic data necessary for family supports to be implemented for families of infants with disabilities.