The examination of an education program to improve peer relationships of the autistic children integrated in classroms

The aim of this research is to examine the effectiveness of an education program in order to increase the social acceptance, adaptation and peer relationships of autistic children integrated in first degree classrooms.The research was executed in five schools of MEB of Turkish government in Izmir, in the year of 2011. The independent variable of the research is the ?education program? and the independent variables are ?social acceptance of peers, their adaptational process through schooling and the social behaviors based on teachers and peers. The sample was given pre tests and post tests. The data were collected by the quantitive and qualitative methods.During the collection of the data, to determine the students social acceptance and school adaptation ?Walker-McConnell Social Competence and School Adaptation Scale?, to determine the social acceptance of integrated students ?Sociogram? and ?Social Acceptance Scale?, to determine the teachers observations among the integrated students relationships with their peers ?Teachers Form? and to collet the demographical data, ?Personal Information Form? were used.Education program is consisted of 11 activities to make the social acceptance to incease and came through in 13 course hours in two classrooms which are assigned as experiment group. This program was applied first of all as a pilot study in another school chosen by the researcher and in the light of the feedbacks it was revised and enriched by the researcher. The education program hasn?t been given to the control group.The data obtained from the researche showed that, the educational program which designed to develop the peer relationships was effective on the peer acceptance and the social sufficiency of the students with autism, helping them to adjust themselves to the school by showing corresponding behaviours. In accordance with the data derived from the research, further investigations and applications were also suggested.