Page 94 - Social networks of people with mild intellectual disabilities: characteristics and interventions

Chapter 4
& Roeyers, 2006), for parents of people with ASD (Benson, 2012; Pozo, Sarriá, & Brioso, 2013) and for adults with ID (van Asselt-Goverts et al., 2015; Bramston, Chipuer, & Pretty, 2005; Lunsky & Benson, 2001; Miller & Chan, 2008) have been shown. For people with ASD, comorbidity with psychiatric disorders, such as mood and anxiety disorders, is very common (Hofvander et al., 2009; Mazzone, Ruta, & Reale, 2012; Seltzer et al., 2004). Moreover, people with ASD report lower health related quality of life than the general population (Khanna et al., 2014) and people with ID experience health inequalities (Emerson & Hatton, 2008). In the onset, expression and severity of these mental health problems, the environmental context may play an important role and social support might contribute to a decrease of these problems (Mazzone et al., 2012). Increasing health through social network enhancement might save health care expenses. This underlines the importance of social network interventions for people with ASD and ID.
Although both people with ID and people with ASD experience difficulties in developing and maintaining social contacts, the present research shows that each group has its own issues with regard to social network characteristics, satisfaction and wishes. Support staff should adapt to these network characteristics and to the needs and wishes with respect to the social networks to facilitate their social inclusion and as a consequence enhance their quality of life. For instance, in actual practice it can be useful to explore the reasons for a client perceiving him/herself or the network member as the main initiator of contact and support him/her to a more reciprocal initiation of these contacts. To adapt to network characteristics it is also recommended to use, in day-to- day practice, both the MSNA and the ecogram, because both measures have merits and limitations. In addition, the measure of satisfaction and wishes used in this research would also be useful for support staff. To facilitate social inclusion, the training of professionals may be necessary, for instance along the lines of Person Centered Planning (PCP; O’Brien, Pearpoint, & Kahn, 2010). Because research shows that people with ASD are less likely to have a PCP plan (Claes, van Hove, Vandevelde, van Loon, & Schalock, 2010; Robertson et al., 2007), future research on PCP with people with ASD is recommended. In the Netherlands an equivalent of PCP is available for people with mild ID; in this training offered by a self-advocacy group, they learn to map their network, their dreams and goals, their gifts, strengths and talents and to plan a meeting with network members (Blommendaal & van de Lustgraaf, 2006). Because, in actual
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