The Impact of Training Mothers of Autistic Children for Effective Communication Skills on Family Emotional Conditions, Adaptability and Cohesion

This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of training parents of children with autism for effective communication skills on family emotional conditions and family Adaptability and cohesion improvement in autistic children.
The present study used a semi-experimental pretest-posttest control-group design. From among the mothers of autistic children between 4 and 13 years of age visiting Tehran Autism Center in the academic year 2015-2016, 24 were selected according to eligibility criteria and were assigned to experimental and control groups through simple random sampling. After conducting the pre-test using the Family Emotional Conditions Questionnaire (Hill Bern, 1964) and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale (FACES-III) (Olson, Portner and Lavee, 1985), the experimental group received 8 sessions of effective communication skills training. In the end, both groups took the post-test.
The resulting data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance. The results showed that effective communication skills training improves family emotional conditions and family adaptability (p Effective communication skills training is an effective training program for helping families with autistic children.