Affiliate Stigma among Parents of Multiple Children Within Autism Spectrum Disorder

Affiliate stigma is a social stigma or negative judgement characterized by being associated with the stigmatized individual. The research objectives sought to examine (1) the scenarios that affiliate stigma has for parents and how parents reacted towards it, and (2) to investigate the lens of the disorder and how the parents perceived and desired for better understanding. The participants were eight parents who have multiple children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) located in Luzon, Philippines. Convenient and snowball sampling were utilized to recruit participants, and a semi-structured, in-depth interview was used to gather the data. The narratives that the researchers collected show six (6) themes: sources of affiliate stigma, setting the scenes associated with affiliate stigma, events interrelates with affiliate stigma, parents’ desire of understanding, inclusivity, internalization, and prejudice directed towards themselves as the primary caregivers. The findings indicate that affiliate stigma comes from family, friends, or strangers and usually happens at home, school, or social occasions. As a result, parents experience harmful consequences, which lead to affiliate stigma and the difficulty of coping with negative judgements because of the negativity and unfairness of society due to the challenges of raising children with ASD.