earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not there were any gaps among the needs of parents with disabled children for family support programs and what they actually needed in working out challenging problems with the rearing of their disabled children in an effort to help normalize their family function. The subjects in this study were 180 fathers and mothers who had children with disabilities and resided in Seoul and Gyeonggi province. The findings of the study were as follows:
1. There was no overall difference among the needs of the parents for family-support programs. When 40 items were utilized to assess their needs, the fathers(82.14%) felt the high need for family-support programs, and the mothers(79.55%) found those programs to be necessary. The fathers called for family-support programs more than the mothers.
2. When t-test was conducted to evaluate their response toward 40 items, there was a significant gap among their reactions to 19 items (47.5%). They weren't much in want of support about six items, including the psychological conflict of the siblings of disabled children, supportive meeting with the siblings of other disabled children, information on the siblings of disabled children, relations between disabled children and their siblings, and relationship between parents and the siblings of disabled children.
3. As a result of investigating their opinions about what gave them difficulty in relation to the development of their children, what type of family-support programs were required to bring them up and what problems should be handled by local community, they pointed out the necessity of education, remedial education institutes, support for child rearing, daycare services, after-school programs, welfare policies, economic aid, and support for themselves and the future of their children. In addition, they called on people to look at disabled people in a different way.
4. As for possible solutions for the problems with family support for children with disabilities, the fathers and mothers believed that it's required to increase educational institutes, let regular schools secure more special education teachers and assistant teachers, install short-term care and daycare facilities, prepare after-school programs, make an early diagnosis of children with disabilities, and publicize family-support programs. In addition, they called for financial aid and leisure and health programs geared toward themselves, and considered it necessary for the government to take actions to change people's mind-set about the disabled.