Access Barriers to Services by Immigrant Mothers of Children with Autism in Canada

Abstract

Equal access for autism services remains suboptimal for diverse groups. In Canada, little is known about the barriers immigrant mothers face accessing services and support for their children with developmental disabilities. In this qualitative study, 21 immigrant mothers of children with Autism, from a diverse ethno cultural background, were interviewed in Toronto, Canada. We apply House’s (1981) four domains of social support to analyze findings. Structural support challenges, such as delays in diagnosis, fragmented and dispersed services were common, followed by instrumental challenges due to loss of social ties and stigma. Lack of expected support from partners, and negative perceptions of services, were identified as emotional and perceptive challenges. Focused attention is required to address inequalities within the context of current access pathways for autism.

Challenges to accessing crucial services in the management of children having Autism Spectrum Disorders: Caregivers’ perspective in Kenya

“…On the hand the cost incurred in taking care of children with ASD is enormous, this includes the cost of occupational therapy and other healthcare services. Similar high cost in health and special education services have been reported in other studies [3][4][5]11,20].…”

“…This is addition to a lot of barriers observed in an endeavour to realize the government's effort through the Kenya Ministry of Education's for right to education for all children. Similarly, studies in Canada, Oman and Saudi Arabia confi rm that a lack of resources and training of professionals hinders inclusion of children with ASD to relevant institution because of ineffi cient policies [5,7,23].…”

“…Likewise, cultural prejudices as a result of lack of information hinder the treatment of children with ASD [2,4,5,8,12,13,16,[19][20][21]26,28,29]. But studies conducted in developed countries have shown that availing enough information, training of healthcare professionals and ensuring a collaborative effort from other stakeholders alleviate such confusions [24,[26][27][28][29][30].…”

“…A lack of professional help from the government further hampers service development and support [13,20]. Studies in Canada, Oman and Saudi Arabia confi rm a lack of resources and training of professions, hindering inclusion of children with ASD in relevant institutions because of ineffi cient policies [3,5,21].…”

“…On the other hand, relevant measures have proven to be benefi cial in the process of addressing issues concerning children with ASD and their families. Noting that initiatives may get resistance such as cultural prejudice towards children with disability, inaccessible schools and health facilities and poverty [6,14,[16][17][18][19], studies conducted to establish the general population's beliefs about ASD reported that a lack of information about and treatment of ASD [4,5]. The solution they noted was creating awareness through media houses and facilitating training of healthcare professionals.…”