The Effect of Family Interaction Program Training on Couple Satisfaction and Communication Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism is a disorder associated with problems in social interaction, communication, and repetitive and limited behavior patterns. According to the results of some studies, some mothers of children with autism have higher levels of depression and stress symptoms than mothers of typically developing children, so the purpose of the present study was the effect of family interactions training on marital satisfaction and communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorder.

The study was a quasi-experimental with pre-test, post-test, and control group design. The statistical population of the study included all mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder in Tehran in 2016. The study sample consisted of 24 mothers with autistic children from the mentioned population who were selected by convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (each group consisting of 12 persons). The intervention program was taught to the experimental group for 12 sessions and the control group did not receive this training. At the end both groups were evaluated in post-test and follow-up. The research tool was Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (1994) and Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire (Afroz, 2012) which were completed in three stages. The obtained data were also analyzed using covariance analysis

The results of the data analysis showed that the intervention program increased the mean subscales of marital satisfaction, family interactions, and communication skills of autistic children in the experimental group (P <0.05), while the post-test scores of the control group in all subscales did not change significantly.

Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that the family interactions training used in this study was able to improve the communication skills of children with autism by increasing the level of parental awareness and improving the appropriate interaction with the child and spouse.