The autism sense of the parent having children with autism and determining the relationship between their family traits and their self respect

This study is a descriptive type survey on parents who have children with autism and this study is on the determining the relations among family characteristics, parents perceptions of autism and self-esteem. This research has been realized in two training school which are a private special training center and a government school in Ankara between November 2014 and June 2015. Research Universe is consisted of parents with autistic children that have studying private traing center and Goverment scholl and study samples are consisted of fifty one mothers and forty fathers taken from private training center and nine mother from goverment school. A form which is intended collecting socio-demographic characteristics of parents, Family Assesment Scale, Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale and Semi-Structured Interview Form prepared by reserchers according to references on this research area are used for data collection. It is used IBM SPSS Statistics 21 statistical package to calculate Median, interquartil range, minimum and maximum statistics and to compare groups and variables Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparison, Kruskal Wallis H test and Mann Whitney U tests. It is used p<0.05 level for statistical significance. In this study, the parents opinions on their autistic children are not significant according to being their mother or father (P>0.05). Family functions of fathers are healty according to mothers. Rosenberg self esteem Scale Median scores are not significant between parents (P>0.05). Between Family Assesment Scale constracts and Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale Median scores are determined weak, positive and linear correlation. In this study, lack of information of parents are defined to cause delays in diagnostic process. We are recomended that it must be made social and psychologic support programs to informing of parents in this issue and increasing the positive perception of autism.