Preliminary Findings from an Advocacy Training Program for Chinese Immigrant Parents of Children with Autism

• In Event: Exploring Parent, Child, and Youth Outcomes From Home-School Engagement

Abstract

Despite the responsibility of advocacy for their children with autism, Chinese immigrant parents often face unique barriers to the activation of their roles as advocates. A need for parental advocacy training exists among this population. An explanatory sequential design of mixed methods research has been utilized to evaluate an intervention program that is adapted from the Volunteer Advocacy Program (Burke, Magaña, et al., 2016). Fourteen parents participated in six group sessions that occurred once per week for an average of 83 minutes. This session provides preliminary findings of the quasi-experiment, which revealed that the program was effective primarily in terms of increasing parental knowledge about special education, advocacy skills, and advocacy activities.

Authors

• Lei Huang, University of Georgia

• Cynthia O. Vail, University of Georgia

• Eleanor Xiaoxiao Mehta, St. John's University