Abstract
Parental involvement is a key factor in many studies based on children throughout their lifetime. The reason for that is because parental involvement has proven to have significant influence over a person throughout their lifetime; more especially, the direction of their lives and what type of human beings they end up becoming. Careers are one of the factors which people generally include in their analysis of the child once they grow up. There are challenges when it comes to parenting but even more so for parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder. In most scenarios establishing a career can be hard. However, for the youth with autism, it can be an overwhelming transition as transitions are not as straight forward for youth with autism. Considering that autism is a spectrum, it was of interest to compile research from the parents’ perspective. This research explored how parents navigated in assisting their youth with autism in the career transitioning process. A qualitative approach was used; purposeful sampling assisted with the data for this study. The following four themes emerged from the findings: Theme 1: Positive Parent-child relationships in Career Mapping; Theme 2: Limited knowledge related to the career transitioning process of youth with autism; Theme 3: Support Resources for Parents; Theme 4: Discussions emanating from Photovoice. The findings in this study are of value because of the limited scope of research within the field of Autism Spectrum Disorder, not only for South Africa but Africa as a continent.
KEYWORDS: Autism Spectrum Disorder; Parental Involvement; Career Transitioning Youth