PARENTAL AWARENESS OF AUTISTIC SYMPTOMS IN CHILDREN

Abstract

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder is a collective term for a set of pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by moderate to severe impairments in expressive and receptive communication, social skills and socialization, and repetitive or stereotypical behaviors and interests. Evaluation and analysis of ASD includes a multidisciplinary group. Guardians should be made mindful of the angles identified with, social association troubles, discourse and language abilities delay, formative aptitudes delay, engine formative abilities delay for early distinguishing proof.

Material & Methods: The study design for this research was cross sectional survey. This study was carried out at Riphah International University Lahore Campus. Data was collected from Multan. The study duration was six month after the approval of BASAR. The study duration was January 2020 to August 2020. The study population included parents of Autistic children and parents of typically developing child. Children with age of 3 to 8 years were included. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were recruited to carry out the study after informed consent. The sample size for this study was 200. Autistic children with comorbidity were excluded. Children with above the age of 8 years were excluded. It consists of 24 questionnaires. A total of 5 speech and language pathologist were asked to give their responses according to the expert opinion Instrument’s reliability confirmed with the help of Cronbach’s alpha, the value of which was 0.809.

Results: The study findings provide a useful comparison of how people with and without autism view autism spectrum disorder in terms of awareness and perception. According to the study, there is a notable difference in the awareness and knowledge of autism between people who have it and those who do not.

Conclusion: It was concluded that both parents who have Autistic children and those who have normally developing children lack knowledge of the signs and symptoms of autism. However, somehow, parents of children with autism have little knowledge compared to normally developing children's parents.