Page 79 - Social networks of people with mild intellectual disabilities: characteristics and interventions

Comparison of Social Networks
1. Are there differences between people with ASD, mild ID and a reference group in their description of structural network characteristics (i.e. size, frequency, length and initiation)?
2. Are there differences between these three groups in their description of functional network characteristics (i.e. affection, connection, preference and practical/informational support)?
3. Are there differences in how the three groups perceive their social network (i.e. satisfaction and wishes)?
4.2 Methods
4.2.1 Participants
Participants met the inclusion criteria if they were young adults, living 4 independently in the community for at least 2 years (i.e. lived in the community
alone, with a partner, friend or children; persons living in a group home or with
their family were thus excluded from the present study). Moreover, included participants were adults with a mild to borderline ID or adults with ASD and
without ID or adults with neither of those disabilities/disorders. The persons with ID were recruited via seven care organizations which were located in the southeast of the Netherlands. The persons with ASD were recruited from two MEE support agencies (organizations that provide mobile advice and support to people with disabilities), located in the east and middle of the Netherlands. The reference group subjects (REF group; i.e. people without ID or ASD) were living in the southeast of the Netherlands and were recruited by students of the HAN University of Applied Sciences. The students were asked to recruit two participants, taking account of age and gender, with respect to the REF group. These two participants were each interviewed by another student who had not been involved in the recruitment. The total sample consisted of 105 persons: 33 persons with mild to borderline ID, 30 persons with ASD and 42 persons in the REF group. The age of the participants varied from 19 to 36 years for both ID and REF group and 19–37 years for the ASD group. The mean age of the participants of the distinct groups did not differ significantly, for the ID group 28.9 (SD = 5.2), for the ASD group 29.7 (SD = 4.7) and for the REF group 28.4 (SD = 4.8), F(2, 102) = 0.702, p = .498. Although the proportion of men in the ASD group seemed higher, this was not a significant difference (see Table 1).
77