counseling intervention for improving parents' awareness regarding their autistic children

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of counseling intervention sessions on parents' awareness regarding their autistic children's illness; through improving their knowledge, attitudes and practices toward their children. The sample included 100 parents' caregivers accompanying their children with autistic disorder aged 3 -12 years, who attended to the Out-Patient Clinic of the Institute of Psychiatry, Ain Shams University. The tool used in the study was an interviewing questionnaire, which covered socio demographic data about parents and their autistic children such as: age , sex, rank of child in family, marital status, educational level and occupation of parents; statements to assess the knowledge of parents about autism; statements to assess positive and negative attitudes toward their children; and statements to measure their practices toward child’s communication, social interaction impairment and odd, repetitive, stereotyped behaviors. This questionnaire was applied before and after the counseling sessions. The results of this study showed improvements, with highly statistically significant differences between before and after application of the counseling intervention program regarding to parents’ knowledge, attitudes and practices toward their Autistic children. The study recommended that counseling clinic for parents of autistic children is needed to offer appropriate care and support through open dialogues between parents and health professionals in order to plan for intervention and guide families to know how to deal with their children’s problems and difficulties.