Meltdown in Autism: Challenges and Support Needed for Parents of Children with Autism

Abstract

Meltdown is very common to every child. However, it is more complicated and extreme among children with autism. Generally, a meltdown or a breakdown happens is caused by a situation where children with autism are in a room or place with crowds, when they hear a loud noise, or when they are in a position where it is hard to express their feelings or emotions through words. When this happens, instead of words, they will tell their feelings through loud or long cries, screams, and to the extent that they would hurt themselves. For example, bumping their head or body on the wall or even falling to the ground. This has caused many implications and challenges to the parents of children with autism. Hence, parents need support in handling meltdowns among children with autism. This study aims to investigate parents' challenges and reveal the support they require when their children with autism have meltdowns. It is critical to understand autism and how this subtopic; meltdown, challenge parents in order to understand the support that parents of children with autism require, especially when their child meltdown in a crowd where many eyes are on them, primarily to at least minimize negative perceptions towards the parents and their children with autism. A qualitative research methodology was adopted for this study, and parents of children with autism were interviewed to collect primary data. Interviews were conducted with five mothers and one father of children with autism. The findings revealed that the challenges encountered by parents during the meltdown of their children with autism include physical, mental, and emotional challenges. Emotional challenges appeared to be the most challenging for parents. Parents of children with autism require support in terms of services and skills, moral support, and societal awareness. This study also exposes to culture a minor aspect of autism, the meltdown itself, in the hope that it will help the community understand more about autism, particularly the challenges encountered and the support required by parents of children with autism. This study will help to broaden future autism research, particularly clinical explanations for meltdowns.