A father’s tale: stories and experiences offathers whose children have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Very little has been researched about the experience of fathering a child with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). An explorative narrative research design was used to gain a better understanding of how fathers (N=10) experience their children who have been diagnosed with ASD, and thus answer the question: “What stories do fathers of children with ASD tell about fatherhood and about their fathering experiences?” Data to inform this study was gathered through in-depth and unstructured interviews. Each of the fathers’ narratives was storied using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) notion of human experience that is defined in terms interaction, correct, continuity, and situation. The resulting narratives were written in the ‘third-person-omniscient’. This phase of the study was followed by a ‘commentary phase’ that sought to describe the connectedness between the 10
narratives storied. The study illustrates how the challenges fathers of children diagnosed with ASD encountered affected their fathering experiences and their notions of fatherhood. The study also sheds light on the aspirations, hopes, dreams, concerns and reservations these fathers have with regards to the future of their children.