A Descriptive Study to Assess the Knowledge Regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder among the Teachers of selected Primary schools at Mangaluru with a view to Develop an Information Booklet

Ms. Sneha Augustine¹, Ms. Sneha Thampy Paul¹, Ms. Tisin Thomas¹, Ms. Josna George¹,

Mrs. Lavina Rodrgues^2*, Mrs. Vineetha Jacob³

¹Students IV BSc (N), Yenepoya Nursing College, Yenepoya University , Mangaluru,

²Lecturer, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Yenepoya Nursing College Mangaluru

³Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatric Nursing, Yenepoya Nursing College Mangaluru

*Corresponding Author Email:lovesyril@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behaviour. The study was aimed to assess the knowledge regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder among the teachers of selected primary schools at Mangaluru. Materials and methods: A descriptive research design with an evaluative approach was adopted for the study. 50 teachers of selected primary schools who met the inclusion criteria were selected through convenience sampling technique. The investigators developed an information booklet and structured knowledge questionnaire on ASD was used to collect the data. Results: Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyse the data. Analysis revealed that the majority of the samples (60%) had good knowledge, 24% had excellent knowledge and 16% had average knowledge. Chi-square test is used to find the association of knowledge scores with selected demographic variable. All the variables showed no significant association of the knowledge scores with selected demographic variable at 0.05 level of significance. Conclusion: The overall findings of the study revealed that majority of the teachers of selected primary schools had good knowledge regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder. Hence an information booklet on ASD were provided to the samples those had average knowledge on ASD.

KEYWORDS:Knowledge, Autism Spectrum Disorder, teachers, primary schools, information booklet.

INTRODUCTION:

Autism is one of five developmental disorders included under the umbrella of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder.¹It is a complex neurodevelopment disorder, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behaviour.²Health experts believe that since the first signs usually appear before a child is three years old, early detection of this incurable disease can help a child lead his full potential.³

World Autism Facts and Statistics showed that about 1 percent of the world population has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Prevalence in the United States is estimated at 1 in 68 births and increased by 119.4 percent from 2000 to 2010.³ India is home to about 10 million people with Autism and the disability has shown an increase over the last few years. According to statistics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in every 88 children today is born with Autism Spectrum Disorder ³

Autism Spectrum Disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis are on the rise. Many teachers and parents have little experience with the most recent information and research on these exceptionalities and few teachers have received any in-service training to help them understand and differentiate instruction for these students⁴

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

With increasing knowledge regarding Autism, recent epidemiological studies from the developed world have reported the prevalence to have increased substantially, from 4 to 5 per 10,000 in 1960s to approximately 1-2% today. A recent study in 2008 from Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, gave an estimate that around 6.3% children in special schools across the city fulfilled the criteria for being Autistic.⁶

There is, to date, no cure for Autism, but ASD can benefit from interventions that may improve developmental directions. Many studies showed that early intervention can improve long term outcome of Autistic children.⁶ Intensive, sustained special education programs and behaviour therapy early in life can help children acquire self-care, social, and job skills, and often improve functioning and decrease symptom severity and maladaptive behaviours.⁵

Experts believe that despite India having many special schools for disables, the facilities required by autistic children are still insufficient. Since they find it difficult to express themselves socially, often it is seen that teachers are not confident enough of teaching them. These children need trained therapists and educators who make them feel comfortable and teach them more of social skills⁶

Teachers form an integral part of the initial social circle of a child, their knowledge about the subject is crucial to early identification of Autistic children which is the key to their better developmental outcome. Teachers also have a fundamental role in support services and educational progress of Autistic children; therefore their perceptions about ASD are critical for better results. The investigators in the present study believe that the study findings will have a widespread impact on the new recommendations regarding increasing awareness and sensitization of teachers about the disorder may help in easier main streaming of Autistic children and lesser dropout rates.⁵

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

A descriptive research design was adopted to assess knowledge regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder among teachers of selected primary schools. The sample consists of 50 teachers were selected through the convenience sampling technique

Instrument for data collection

Data collection tools are the instruments used by the researcher to measure the key variables in the research problem.⁹After an extensive review of literature, discussion with the guide and various experts related to the subject matter and based on the researcher's personal experience the data collection tool was developed.The data collection tool used for the study consisted of two sections:

Section A:

Demographic Proforma consists of 9 items to obtain the related information such as age, gender, religion, educational qualification, years of experience, classes or training programme regarding ASD, information regarding ASD, source of information regarding ASD, managed any student with ASD.

Section B:

Structured knowledge questionnaire on Autism Spectrum Disorder which consists of 25 items.

Inclusion criteria

The teachers who were:

· Present during the data collection period.

· Willing to participate in the study

Exclusion criteria

· The teachers who were not available during the period of data collection.

Data collection procedure and analysis:

The researcher obtained formal permission from the respective authority of the institution for conducting the study. Ethical clearance was obtained from the ethics committee of Yenepoya University. Formal written permission was taken from the Principals of selected primary schools of Mangaluru. Pretesting and reliability of the tool was done. Reliability was found to be 0.79 which was considered as reliable. The data collection was made from 17th to 20th October 2015. Subjects were informed about the nature and purpose of the study. Prior to the data collection informed consent was taken. Data collection was done by using demographic proforma and structured knowledge questionnaire on ASD. Collected data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

RESULTS:

Section A: Description of the demographic variables of the sample.

The study revealed that, majority (52%) of the subjects belonged to the age group of 41-50 years, whereas 18% were from age group of 51 and above. In relation to gender, majority (94.0%) of subjects were females, whereas 6.0% of subjects were male gender. Maximum percentages (60%) of the samples were belonged to Christian religion and the least percentages (2%) were belonged to other religion group. Regarding educational qualification, highest percentage (40%) of respondents had Bachelor in education, whereas the lowest percentages (2%) were having Master degree in education. Majority (40%) of the subjects were having experience of 6-10 years, whereas 8% of subjects were having experience >1 year.

Highest percentages (86%) of the subjects were not attended the classes or training on ASD, whereas the lowest percentage (12%) of subjects attended the classes or training on ASD. Based on information, all the subjects (100%) were having the information regarding autism. Among them, 44% gained information from books/journals/ magazines, 32% gained through mass media, 16% gained from family members, 6% from health personnel and 2% of the samples gained information from other sources. Maximum percentage (92%) of the subjects were not managed any student with ASD whereas 8% of subjects managed the students with ASD

Section B: Knowledge of the teachers regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder

Figure 1: Bar diagram representing the level of knowledge of the teachers on ASD

Figure 1 shows that majority of teachers (60%) had good knowledge, 24% of teachers had excellent knowledge and 16% of teachers had average knowledge whereas none of the teachers had poor knowledge.

Table 1: Description of area wise mean, standard deviation, and mean percentage of knowledge score N=50

Sl. No	Area of knowledge	Maximum possible score	Mean score	SD	Mean%
1.	Meaning	4	3.04	0.8	76
2.	Incidence and prevalence	1	0.78	0.18	78
3.	Etiology and Risk factors	3	1.76	0.67	58.66
4.	Signs and symptoms	9	5.38	3.48	59.77
5.	Investigation and Management	8	4.88	2.03	61
	Overall knowledge scores	25	15.84	8.16	63.36

Maximum total score= 25

Section C: Association between the level of knowledge and selected variables

Table 2: Chi-square test showing association between the level knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder and selected variables N=50

Sl.No.	Demographic data	df	c² value	Table value	Inference
1.	Age in years	3	7.77	7.82	NS
2.	Gender	1	0.114	3.84	NS
3.	Religion	3	2.55	7.82	NS
4.	Educational status	2	4.32	5.99	NS
5.	Year of experience	3	7.33	7.82	NS
6.	Training /classes attended	1	1.09	3.84	NS
7.	Information regarding ASD	1	0	3.84	NS
8.	Source of information	4	6.97	9.49	NS
9.	Managed student with ASD	1	2.44	3.84	NS

P ≤0.05; S= Significant; NS=Not significant

The association between the level of knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder and selected variables were found by using Chi-square test. The data presented in the table 2 shows that there is no significant association of the knowledge scores with selected demographic variable such as age, gender, religion, educational status, year of experience, training classes attended, source of information regarding A.S.D, managed student with ASD at p<0.05 levelof significance.

DISCUSSION:

The present study findings are consistence with the research findings of another study shows that, majority 40% of the samples belongs to the age group of 31-35 years, 60% of the subjects belongs to female gender, majority 66% of subjects belongs to Hinduism, 80% of the teachers were married, 77% of subjects have Bachelor in Education, 73% of subjects have monthly income between 4,810-8,009, 87% of subjects have no previous knowledge on Autism Spectrum Disorder, and 43.30% of subjects belongs to 0-5 years of experience.⁷On the basis of frequency and percentage wise distribution of knowledge about Autism was found that the majority (96.7%) of pre-school teachers had poor knowledge and only (3.3%) preschool teachers had average knowledge.⁸

In order to determine the significant association Chi-square test was computed. It showed that there was a significant association between knowledge level and socio demographic variables such as age (c²=0.720 p=0.023), educational status (c²=1.617 p=0.0445), gender (c²=.432 p=.021), religion (c²=2.880 p=0.410), marital status ((c²=5.340 p=0.029), year of experience (c²=2.954 p=0.0399) are significant. The other demographic variables like income had no significant association with post-test knowledge scores.⁸

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The authors express sincere thanks to Principal and faculty of Yenepoya Nursing College, all the experts who validated the tool and all the subjects who participated in the collection of data for establishing reliability, pilot study, and also for the main study. The authors also extend their gratitude to the Principals of selected primary schools of Mangaluru for granting the permission to conduct the study.

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Received on 11.02.2016 Modified on 18.05.2017

Asian J. Nur. Edu. and Research.2017; 7(4): 491-494.

DOI:10.5958/2349-2996.2017.00095.7