Autism Spectrum Disorders in the Sars-Cov-2 period and parents’ stress: A case study

Abstract

The family and the school face the challenge for the foreseeable future regarding how to organize, each of the two institutions, the learning of their child-students while responding to the diverse needs of each of them. The challenge is not just to ensure that each child-student receives an optimal learning experience; rather, it is to address inequities arising from biological-physical-psychological-socioeconomic-cultural aspects and to provide students with equal opportunities to learn in independent and personalized ways. Equal opportunities, also for the people carrying Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), especially children and adolescents, who are diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders and, in particular, with the pathology referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In the first instance, the objective of the study, and the corresponding research-investigation, was to evaluate within a group of families whether the introduction and use of Alternative Augmentative Communication -CAA, in its various forms, could cause a change in the communicative relationship (hypothesis), assessed through a positive change (magnitude reduction) in the level of stress in the parents (indirect indicator).

Keywords

• Equal opportunities
• Autism spectrum disorders
• Augmentative and Alternative communication
• Family stress
• Parenting Stress Index