The effect of nature education on social skills of children with autism spectrum disorder

The aim of this research is to examine the effect of nature education program on the social skills of children with autism. The study group of this research, which was designed with a quasi-experimental design in which pretest-posttest measurements were made on the experimental-control groups; In the 2020-2021 academic year, children with autism between the ages of 7 and 8 who attend the two different special education practice schoolsl were formed. Purposeful sampling, one of the non-random sampling methods, was used while creating the control and experimental groups. Nature activities were applied to 4 children with autism for 8 weeks, 3 sessions a week and a total of 24 sessions. There was no intervention in the children with autism in the control group. All data obtained during the research; It was determined by using the Autism Social Skill Profile Scale for children answered by teachers and their families. Children in the experimental and control groups before the intervention and after the intervention, the scale OSBP taken from pre - and post-test scores to compare the significance of the difference between the Mann-Whitney U test, experimental and control groups pre - and post-test scores of the difference between the Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to test for the significance of their own group dynamics. The analysis of the data was analyzed with the help of a statistical program. When the findings obtained as a result of the research were examined, no statistically significant difference was found between the social skill scores of the children with autism in the experimental and control groups before the intervention. Post-intervention analyses also revealed a positive and statistically significant change in the social skill scores of the children with autism in the experimental group, there was no significant positive change in the social skill scores of the children in the control group. In the same way, when the final tests were compared in both groups, it was seen that the children in the experimental group received significantly higher social skill scores than the children in the control group. In the follow-up test data taken from the experimental group, it was measured that social skills are permanent. When the research findings are taken into consideration, the accuracy of 6 hypotheses out of 8 hypotheses that the researcher put forward before the research has been proven. In this context, it has been observed that nature activities have an effect on the development of social skills of 4 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the experimental group of this research.