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Abstract
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Aims: On 06.02.2023, two earthquakes with magnitudes of Mw 7.7 and Mw 7.6 occurred in Turkey, which was recorded as the most destructive earthquake storm in the history of the country. Studies show that the recovery of resilience and pre-disaster functions in young people with autism largely depends on their immediate inclusion in routine, intensive rehabilitation programs and fixation of daily life routines as much as possible. However, after the earthquake, many rehabilitation centers where individuals with autism received special education support were destroyed. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of a group-based parent-mediated intervention program on autistic children and their parents. Method: The study was carried out with autistic children aged 18-72 months who were exposed to the earthquake and their parents. Before and after the intervention, parents were asked to fill Social Communication Checklist-Revised (SCC-R), Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS). The program was implemented in 2 hours once a week for 6 weeks (12 hours in total). Each week, short lecture (e.g. imitation, modeling) was delivered to the parents, videos recorded by the parents were watched and feedback was given to the parents. Results and Conclusions: A total of 57 children (44 male; 13 female) aged 18-72 months (mean age: 44.9 months) and their parents participated in the study. Nineteen families lost their first degree relatives in the earthquake. Fourteen families suffered severe, 11 families moderate, and 32 families suffered mild home-workplace loss. After the program, 100% of the parents stated that they learned how to apply the different methods explained during the intervention, 93.3% stated that they could apply them during daily activities, and 90.3% stated that they felt more competent towards their children after the training. Although the Stress, Anxiety and Depression subscales of DASS decreased, only the improvement in the Depression subscale was significant. SCC-R total scored increased significantly after the intervention. In the short term, at a time when autistic childrens' access to special education was limited, it was observed that there were significant improvements in social communication skills of the children and depressive symptoms of parents.
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