Investigating the effects of sensory development support programme prepared for mothers on sensory and social development of children with autism

Objective: This study was conducted in order to investigate the effects of the sensory development support programme prepared for mothers on sensory and social development of children with autism. Material and Method: The study was carried out between the dates of February 2020 and June 2021 as pre-test, post-test and retention test with control groups test pattern in primary schools and Private Training and Rehabilitation Centres, which have autism classes for children diagnosed as autistic and which are situated in Batman Province. The study was completed with 26 mothers (11 test, 15 control) who have children with autism and at the ages of 7-10. The data were collected using Personal Information Form, Sensory Assessment Form for Children with Autism and Autism Social Skill Profile-Turkish Form. The mothers in the test group were applied a 12 session sensory Development Support Programme, while mothers in control group received no application. In the analysis of the data, on one hand descriptive statistics (number, mean, standard deviation, percentage) and the value of skewness and kurtosis for the assumption of normality and the Levene test for the assumption of homogeneity were used, and later chi-square, t test and ANOVA were used on the other. Results: When the changes in average scores of sensory scores of autistic children in test group (Testpost-test-pre-test=-21,81Controlpost-tests-pre-tests=-4.40) were considered, it was concluded that after the application of Sensory Development Support Programme, the joint effects of the sensory assessment scores of the children taking part in test and control groups on social skill scores were found statistically significant (p<0.05) Conclusion: It was determined that the sensory development support programme applied to mothers was found to be effective on sensory and social development of children with autism. Key Words: Autism, Sense, Sensory Development, Social Development.