18 Jul 2009

Autism Blogs: Can you help a Master's Student?

I was contacted recently with this request:
I am a student from Queen's University Belfast and I am currently studying a masters in Autistic Spectrum Disorders. At present I am doing my Dissertation which is based on how internet blogging sites assist parents of children on the autism spectrum and so your website is of great interest to me. I realise you are a very busy person but would greatly appreciate it if you would be able to complete a short questionnaire or be able to help me pass my information onto the bloggers of your website. I plan to contact 60 participants in order to fully answer my question. This is all completed with confidentiality and your information will be deleted after it has been used, no names will be used in the writing up of the dissertation and my topic has been approved by Queen's University, Belfast ethics committee.
I agreed to take part and was forwarded the questionnaire. Since this takes the form of just a few multiple choice questions with the option to expand on answers if you choose, it takes just minutes to complete. The questions are about why people read blogs and what they gain from them.

If anyone reading has an autistic child* and would be wiling to take part, please email me (thefamilyvoyage at yahoo dot ie) or leave a comment here and I will pass your details on to the researcher.

*I don't think the child has to have a formal diagnosis but the researcher could clarify that. After all, blogs are often helpful while parents are negotiating the diagnostic process.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You Tube has excellent videos on severe autism and self injury.also a video titled: 'autism spectrum seems out of control' which I found refreshingly open and talking about something that's been bothering me for a long time...