Development of the Psycho-educational Program of " Living Adjusted with Autism" and Its Effectiveness on Limiting the Autistic Symptoms in Children and their Mother's Life Quality

The purpose of this research was to provide a psycho-educational program “Living Adjusted with Autism” for parents with autistic children and evaluate its effectiveness on reducing the autistic symptoms in children and their mothers’ life quality.

In this research 50 mothers of autistic children (24 in intervention group and 26 in the control group) were studied. The intervention group participated in ten two-hour training session, and control group received no intervention. The effectiveness of this intervention in pre-test and post-test by the “World Health Organization Quality of Life Scale” and the “Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist” were tested.

This intervention significantly improved the children’s autistic symptoms (except health and physical behavior) and their mothers’ total score of Quality of Life Scale.

Program "Living Adjusted with Autism" by raising awareness, adaptation and offering adaptive solutions for the most common problems of mothers with autistic children, leads to the reduction of maternal complications and improve the quality of life and some symptoms of autism.