Severity Levels of Autism, Social Interaction Behaviours and School Adjustment of Pre-School Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

School adjustment throughout the early years of formal schooling has been examined on scientific studies for various reasons. Because it predicts certain parts of school success in later years, school adjustment has been suggested to become a focus of research. Although there are numerous factors affecting school adjustment, these factors appear to be categorised as being related to child, family and school or programme. This study examines the relationship between the severity levels of autism in preschool children and their social interaction behaviours characteristic to autism, and their school adjustment. For this purpose, data gathered from a total of 40 students, 6 girls and 34 boys. The age range of the children was 44 to 78 months. Findings reveal that severity levels of disability and social interaction behaviours that are characteristic to ASD predict the school adjustment of preschool children with ASD by 54% in the category of Classroom Participation and by 44% negatively and significantly in the category of Positive Orientation. The findings were discussed based on the literature findings.

The Social Interaction Deficits in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Relevant Interventions

“…Factors influencing school adjustment are related to the child, the family, the school or the program, as it needs to be consistent with educational objectives. In addition, this may also reduce the impairment brought by social interaction [10]. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relationship in between the severity of ASD in preschoolers and characteristics of social interaction and school adaptation.…”

Okul Öncesi Kaynaştırma Sınıfındaki Otizmli Bir Çocuğun Akran İlişkilerinin İncelenmesi

“…Okul öncesi kaynaştırma sınıflarında bulunan otizmli çocuklarla ilgili alanyazında çeşitli çalışmalar bulunmakla beraber, bu çalışmaların genellikle otizmli çocukların sosyal becerilerini ve bu becerileri öğretim müdahalelerini (Aksoy, 2018;Balli, 2020;Dean, Adams ve Kasari, 2013;Girli ve Atasoy, 2010;Güven ve Diken, 2014;Laushey ve Heflin, 2000), sosyal iletişimlerini (Reichow ve Volkmar, 2010;White, Koenig ve Scahill, 2010), okula uyum ve etkileşim davranışlarını (Aksoy, 2018;Balli, 2020) incelediği görülmektedir. Son zamanlarda ise akran aracılı uygulamalar (Abbak Kaçar, 2019;Dean, Adams ve Kasari, 2013;Erdoğan, 2019;Ganz ve Flores, 2008;Tıkıroğlu, 2019) göze çarpmaktadır.…”