"Evaluation of Support Needs in School Children with ASD in Spain"

Background:

The constructs about support and support needs have been one of the axes of development in research and implementation of actions aimed at improving the quality of life of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Assessing the support needs and the intensity of these supports is a crucial strategy for adults with intellectual disabilities and children in school ages.

Objectives:

The purpose of this research is an evaluation of the support needs and their intensity in children in school ages with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Spain, and compared with the intensity of support need showed in other groups with intellectual disability, but without ASD. Besides we wanted to do a first analysis of the support needs in school children with ASD, but without intellectual disability.

Methods:

Management of a support intensity scale (SIS-C) in its first adaptation to the Spanish context. The scale has two sections: (1) exceptional support needs (medical and behavioral) and (2) scale of support needs in representative activities, grouped into seven factors, home life, community life, school participation, school learning, health and safety, social activities and defense or self-representation. The intensity of support is evaluated through three parameters: type of support, frequency of support and daily support time. We evaluated 249 schoolchildren with ASD and intellectual disability, as well as 44 children and adolescents with ASD without intellectual disabilities aged 5 to 16 years. The mean values obtained were compared with a sample of 565 children and adolescents with intellectual disability without ASD from Spain.

Results:

The means obtained showed significant differences in the intensity of support among children and adolescents with intellectual disability without ASD and with ASD; and also when the values of the age groups are contrasted: 5-10 years and 11-16 years. In all the representative activities of the scale, the sample with ASD presents more intense support needs. The sample with ASD without intellectual disability has presented needs of support in diverse areas of support, especially in social activities, defense (self-representation) and school learning.

Conclusions:

The SIS-C scale is a useful tool for assessing support needs in daily life activities in school children with ASD and intellectual disability. The data suggest that the intensity of support needs of students with ASD is greater than that shown by other students with intellectual disabilities who do not have ASD. There are activities in which support intensity is significantly different for the group with ASD, which may be of interest for the processes of: (1) reflection and planning of individual supports, (2) organization of resources and services, and (3) for the development of strategies of educational administration.