How Mothers Talk About Placement of Their Child With Autism Outside the Home

Abstract

In this article I use insights offered by the poststructural shift and linguistic turn in social scientific inquiry, specifically discourse analysis, to explore mothers' talk about the placement of their child with autism outside of the home. By viewing mothers' talk as data, I bring to light the discourses and interpretive practices that mothers drew on to organize their talk of placement. In doing so, I provide insights into how mothers gave meaning to processes of placement while also expanding on commonsensical discursive notions of "good" mothering, caregiving, and family. Implications of the findings are discussed.

A Discourse Analysis: One Caregiver’s Voice in End-of-Life Care

“…To date, there has been limited discourse-based research on caregiving. Studies of caregiving discourse first emerged with child/parent dyads or child/child dyads and sought to understand how language shapes children as they assimilate into a culture, family, or friend group (Corman, 2013; Kendall, 2006; Nwokah, 1987). Research on caregiving of adults with chronic conditions and/or at the EOL is minimal.…”

Street Medicine—Assessment Work Strategies of Paramedics on the Front Lines of Emergency Health Services

“…Examples of discourses include the EMS system being in crisis or the quality of calls that paramedics get sent to (e.g., good calls vs. bad calls) and, through proxy, the quality of patients they come to treat. These socially constructed ways of knowing enable and restrict—organize—the actions and thoughts of individuals to the contours of the discourse’s “moral logic” (Griffith and Smith 2005, 42, cited in Corman 2013) and, in the context of this article, have the ability to organize the assessment work of paramedics.…”

“…The work strategies discussed above also connect to the discursive environment in the City. I define discourses here as “large-scale ways of knowing and saying things about the world” (Corman 2013) that provide cultural frames for how individuals think about, in the context of this research, emergency medical services. Examples of discourses include the EMS system being in crisis or the quality of calls that paramedics get sent to (e.g., good calls vs. bad calls) and, through proxy, the quality of patients they come to treat.…”

Tensions in Maternal Care for Children, Youth, and Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…According to Corman (2013), mothers may be affected by broader societal discourses that suggest what it is to be a ‘good mother’; as such, a child’s challenging behaviors may be attributed to negative judgments about mothering, and thus result in stigma toward mothers (Corman, 2013). The potential of placing a child with ASD in a care environment outside the family home may cause maternal guilt and worry (Corman, 2013).…”

“…According to Corman (2013), mothers may be affected by broader societal discourses that suggest what it is to be a ‘good mother’; as such, a child’s challenging behaviors may be attributed to negative judgments about mothering, and thus result in stigma toward mothers (Corman, 2013). The potential of placing a child with ASD in a care environment outside the family home may cause maternal guilt and worry (Corman, 2013). Mothers of offspring with Asperger’s Syndrome were reported to experience a sense of inadequacy, with conflicting feelings of being too involved in their child’s care, yet not doing enough for them (Gill & Liamputtong, 2011); similar feelings of inadequacy have been noted in other studies (DePape & Lindsay, 2015).…”