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Saturday, November 10, 2018

Signs of Hope in France

In The Politics of Autism, I describe the need for comparative perspectives on the issue.  France, where psychoanalysis long dominated -- and severely hampered -- autism treatment, is worth a special look.  There are some signs of hope there.

At The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders,  Carol Sankey, Cyrielle Derguy Céline Clément, Jennifer Ilg, and Émilie Cappe have an article titled "Supporting Parents of a Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder: The French Awakening."  The abstract:
After being wrongfully blamed for their child’s disturbances, French parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are now perceived as essential partners of care professionals. This shift in perspective has encouraged the development of parent training programs in the field of autism. In this paper, we present three programs currently implemented in France for parents of a child with ASD. We investigated their social validity, from the parents’ perspective. All three programs showed good social validity: attendance rate was good and parents were satisfied. In France, like elsewhere, more parents should be given the opportunity to participate in such programs to help them deal with the specific challenges of raising a child with ASD.