Emotions during Gap Encountering of Autistic Children’s Parents Based on Dervin’s Sense-Making

Abstract

Emotion as an important factor in the study of information behavior is hard to detect. The critical moment when emotions play an important role is the time when one is encountering gaps. This research focuses on investigating emotion roles in information behavior of autistic children’ parents when facing gaps based on Dervin’s Sense-making. Participants include 20 parents or guardians who have been taking care of diagnosed autistic children from 1 to 12 years of age for at least 6 months. Purposive sampling and snow ball sampling techniques are used for selection of the research participants. Data are collected through semi-structured
interviews and analyzed by inductive content analysis of interview transcripts. The analysis revealed that the emotions of autistic children’s parents during facing gaps are unstable depending on the autistic children’s ever-changing behavior and symptoms. The identifed emotions, usually mixed toward one issue, include  sadness, fear, joy, disgust, anger, and anticipation. These emotions coexist and influence one another. This indicates the emotional confusion of the parents who cannot control their emotions and impacts the child rearing. The clarifcation of emotions derived from these research fndings can be used by autistic practitioners in developing their counseling and deliver inform service to autistic parents.