Autism Spectrum Disorders - Sibling's Perspective

The bachelor thesis aims to map sibling relationships of people with autism spectrum disorders and their intact siblings. The theoretical part deals with the issue of autism spectrum disorders and with the developments in the field of professional approach to this concept. The next section is focused on sibling relations and constellations in the majority population, followed by a section dealing with the influence of autism spectrum disorders on sibling relationships. Finally, I try to explain briefly the concept of social support. In the empirical part I present results of the qualitative survey implemented through interviews and a social support questionnaire. The research seeks to examine the problem of demanding coexistence of intact children and their siblings with autism spectrum disorders and to discover impacts of the disorder on mutual relationships of children, as well as on their relationships with parents and on the children's perceptions with respect to their future and the social support. KEYWORDS sibling relationships, sibling constellations, autism spectrum disorder, social suppor