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Sources of Support Groups
 You need support — support from your family, friends, your child’s therapists.
Talking about the challenges you face and your concerns is a great stress buster and will give you more confidence to move forward with treating your child and helping you and your family adjust to a new life.
Your early questions will likely focus on what autism means for your family and how to find a network of professionals to treat your child. How you go about doing this depends on whether you prefer to talk with other parents in a group setting or remain more anonymous by joining an online group.
Starting points for finding support
Contact your:
1. Neighborhood elementary school. Ask if the Parent Teachers Association has a representative for parents of children with special needs.
2. Church, synagogue or other faith-based group. Ask if it has a “special needs ministry” or group that holds support meetings. Regardless of your faith, the Jewish Board of Education also has good leads.
3. Social service agency. Ask if it holds support groups.
4. Local chapter of the Autism Society of America and Families for Early Autism Treatment, or FEAT, have local chapters throughout the United States.
You’re also likely to find support groups by searching Yahoo! Groups. These groups are typically small, and you generally don’t have to worry about spam, but you can get bombarded with messages. Sometimes, groups focus on a particular therapy. In Chicago, for example, you'll find a group called Chicago Floortime Families. [Floortime is play-based therapy]. There also are groups for applied behavior analysis. Your therapist also might know of support groups or put you in touch with another mom or dad whose child's disability aligns with your child's.
Sibling Support
Consider enrolling your non-disabled child in a Sibshop. The Sibshops program brings play and discussion groups to more than 200 locations nationwide. Children get to meet other children in similar circumstances and discuss feelings with professionals that they are having difficulty expressing with their parents. Search the Sibshops website to find a Sibshop in your area.
We also recommend Siblings of Children with Autism: A Guide for Familes by Sandra L. Harris, PhD and Beth A. Glasberg, PhD. We like this book because it shows you how to explain autism to siblings at various age ranges. | 
