Efficacy of Social Attention and Communication educational program(SACS) on nurse's skill concerning early identification of infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Imam Hossein professional hospital in Isfahan

Autism Spectrum Disorders are a collection of related disorders that affect children's social growth and ability to communicate The present study aimed to define the efficacy of social attention and communication educational program on nurse's skill concerning early identification of infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Imam Hossein professional hospital in Isfahan.
This is a quasi-experimental study. Study population comprised all nurses, working in Imam Hossein professional hospital, who were selected through convenient sampling (n=40) , and then, were randomly assigned to study and control groups (n=20, n=20). Nurse's skill was assessed by Social Attention and Communication Study (SACS) checklist (Barbaro , 2011) . Educational program was conducted for study group for three sessions. Finally, post -test was administrated in both study and control groups.
ANCOVA test showed a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of nurse's skill in early identification of the infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in study and control groups(p=0.001). There was also a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of nurse's skill in early detection of communication signs in infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in study and control groups(p=0.001).
The results showed that nurse's training program known as "social interest relationship" could be used to detect risk for autism spectrum disorders and to continue the treatment at 8 months.