Special Education Advocacy Training for Chinese Immigrant Families of Children with Autism

As an underserved and under-researched population, Chinese immigrant parents who have children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often face unique barriers to accessing special education services. A need exists for parental advocacy training (PAT) for the target population, which focuses on enhancing parents’ capability to advocate for services and support on behalf of their children. In this study, I developed and field-tested a special education PAT program adapted from the Volunteer Advocacy Program (VAP; Burke et al., 2016a). Fourteen parents in a southeastern state participated in a total of eight hours of training. An explanatory sequential design of mixed method research was utilized to evaluate the intervention. The findings support the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the PAT program and inform the delivery of improved PAT programs in the future.