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Parent Resources

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Parents Resources

As a parents, guardian, teachers and any one who live and take cares of children with autism, we need help too!  Here is a resource page dedicated to helping you to cope with stress, challenges and motivational issues we are facing or might be facing one day.  If you have additional resources, please comment at end of the page.

 
Female Hiker Gets A Helping Hand 

Need A Helping Hand and A Listening Ear ?

You may feel frustrated and start to lose hope, lose control and loss patience when seeing no big improvements with your child. DON’T GIVE UP. If you give up, there will be lesser hope for your children and all your initial efforts will be wasted.


Instead, MOVE ON, PRESSED ON, live everyday to discover new ways to handle and improve your child situation.

STOP for a while and lean back a bit if you are too tired but don’t give up. There are plenty of helps and support that people are willing to give.


Join A Community
 
Just a group or forum with similar situation. Find comfort in knowing that you are not alone. People are willing to share and give you some pointers in dealing with some tricky situation. You could also give some feedback and helps others out, in this way, you may find a new meaning in life.
Yahoo Groups – Singapore
There are couples of very useful Yahoo Group that you can subscribe to.  Most need to be manually accepted by the group owner.   You will need to have a Yahoo Account to join.   Once accepted, you will communicate via email.  You will receive all emails and responses from other members.  

The disadvantage of Yahoo Group is the lack of organisational structure as every communication is via emails.  You need to read a chains of letters to get the full picture.  However, the good thing is that almost everyone has email and it is easy to use.

  • Shoulders – SG
    “Shoulders” is an online support group for parents with children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) in Singapore where you can learn alot from the parent there.  This is currently the largest (more than 655 members and growing) and the most active. 
  • Autism Recovery –  Started by a DAN! listed practitioner and a Registered Acupuncturist.   Currently the 2nd most active Yahoo group in this category having membership of 230 and growing.
  • DAN SGP – The purpose of DAN_SGP is to allow parents residing in SINGAPORE (only) to share knowledge, experience and information on DAN(Defeat Autism Now!) approach with or about themselves or their child.




Forums
It is different from Yahoo Groups as participation is organised by topics and there is a structure to easily follow the discussions.   All similar discussions are group together and anyone could easily follow the threads. 

 

International Forums



  • Autism-PDD Message Boards – This is the best forum to join where there are tons of information regarding autism and . Look into “Hangout with Friends” section where you may start to find some new found friends who could share your thoughts. Dive into “Updates and Success” and share some of your updates and success so far of your efforts and also get some cheers back in return.
  • Autism Parents
    A forum with various topics relating to autism. Autism topics ranging from Education, TV, medical issues, books and other resources. Although this forum is from UK, anyone can join and find good information including US-linked resources. Joining is straight forward and easy and could be done in just 1 mins.

Singapore Forums

  • Singapore Autism Help and Advices – A newly setup forum specifically setup for Singapore specific discussion and sharing of experiences online.   Leave a question and someone else could follow that up later. Search for downloads and knowledge from here too.




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    Facebook Groups


    Nowadays, most of the people will have a facebook accounts and so many lively sharings could be done via the world largest community services. Not only will you be able to connect to your friends and relatives via facebook, you are able to connect like-mined people having the same interests and making new friends online.

    However, most of you may not know that Facebook also has groups that is interactive (different from Yahoo Groups which is via email),  spontenous, fun and colorful.  You will be able to see sharing of videos, photos, discussions and many more support possibilities through Facebook group!  You are also able to invite any of the people who also deal with autism easily to join the groups.

    You will be amazed at the number of parents who have the same challenges as you in facebook and already a great number of communities already setup virtually in the facebook. They share tips and give support to each others and a pat to your back for some of your successes. Why not, join the facebook groups and start your new experience of tackling autism?

    If you have not been to facebook, just go to facebook and create an account in less than 3 minutes. Once you are logged on, click on the following group(s) that you like to join.  Once you join, the group(s) you selected will appear in your profile. You could start your communication with your group immediately or browse through the contributions by the other members.

    Have fun and start a new way of tackling autism.

    Singapore Facebook

    International Facebook

    • Support families with autism –  Set up this group so families can chat about their problems. I know each child with autism can be so different but sometimes you just need to talk 

    • Advice4Autism – There are so many people giving advice on their programs to help the children with Autism in school and education. Those are great and I support those whole-heartedly. To me, helping an Autistic child in their school years is one of the most important matters a parent will have to work with.

      However, this isn’t that kind of group. I’m not going to suggest what learning program or therapies is gonna best help out a child with Autism. What my advice group is about is dealing with the real world issues that children and adults with Autism, or people who have been affected by Autism, deal with on a daily basis.

      I’m here to help you guys with family issues, relationship issues, work issues, legal issues (disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, Don’t take my advice in exchange for legit legal advice from a trained legal councellor), suicide issues and other problems that may come up.

    • Parents of Autistic Children – A place for parents of autistic children to chew the fat, compare notes, and generally support one another. Also for people who don’t understand , to get an idea of what it is like, and learn more about autism. Hopefully offer some support to one another?

    • Autism Online SupportGroup – For parents who cant make it to regular Autism support groups due to lack of babysitting, travelling, etc……..
      Great place to come and discuss options on what you can do to overcome obstacles.
      Everyone is welcome!

    • Families with Autism  – This group is for anyone, whether they have autism themselves, have a relation or friend with autism and want to know how to support them or just want to help to make people more aware of autism!
      •  Autism Support Group for Friends and Family – This is a place where highschool and college students can learn more about Autism. My brother is 19 and severely autistic and I know that I’ve been through something that most people don’t know about. This is a place where friends and family members can connect to talk about their experiences, memories, and ideas.

      • Parents of Autistic children –  Receiving a diagnosis of autism can be devastating to some parents. Many parents can be overwhelmed by fear and grief for the loss of the future they had hoped for their child. No one expects to have a child with a developmental disability. A diagnosis of autism can be very upsetting. Joining parent support groups may help. However, these strong emotions also motivate parents to find effective help for their children. The diagnosis is important because it can open the doors to many services, and help parents learn about treatments that have benefited similar children.


       

      Motivational Reading

      Sometimes, we just feel much better after reading how much worst other people had went through and how much more efforts they have invested.   Good  to read stories that motivate you gains some strengths from them and uplift your spirits.




        
      Constantly Updating


      The Parent resources will be constantly updated to keep it up to date.   Please comment at the bottom of this page to provide more sources and feedback. 

      3 Comments

      1. KH
        September 28, 2009,

        There are so many resources  and support groups for parents of autistic children. My child is not autistic but has motor and speech delays and has sensory issues.
         
        Do you know of any support group for such parents?

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