Behavioral Consequences Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders at the Special Care Centers

Received: 09-May-2022, Manuscript No. CSRP-22-63315; Accepted Date: Aug 19, 2022 ; Editor assigned: 06-Aug-2022, Pre QC No. CSRP- 22-63315 (PQ); Reviewed: 16-Aug-2022, QC No. CSRP- 22- 63315 (Q); Revised: 18-Aug-2022, Manuscript No. CSRP- 22-63315 (R); Published: 19-Aug-2022, DOI: 10.3371/CSRP.MMWY.100123

Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disease characterized by difficulty in communicating and socializing with others, as well as restricted and repetitive behaviors, interests, and hobbies, where symptoms appear at an early stage of development and have an impact on the daily performance [1]. ASD is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult for the individual to communicate and interact with others, where ASD symptoms range from total lack of communication to a problem of understanding others’ feeling, knowing that one end of the Autism Spectrum is high-performance ASD. Signs and symptoms are milder in other types of disorders, where Autistic children suffer from emotional and behavioral problems, such as responsive symptoms and hyperactivity as well as peer problems that are distinctive in children with disabilities [2]. In reality, an individual with high-performance ASD is typically clever; if not above average while lowperformance ASD categorized as an Autism state with intellectual interruption [3]. The common symptoms of ASD can be represented in poor social reciprocity, abnormal non-verbal communication, problems in creating and sustaining social relationships, repetitive movements, intense concerns, and abnormal physical understanding.

Futhermore, most Autistic people engage in a wide range of problematic behaviors that exceed the fundamental disorder symptoms [4], and given the social difficulties associated with ASD diagnoses, it makes sense to predict that Autistic children show less positive social behaviors than children who normally develop [5]. The majority of studies that support this hypothesis rely on parental reports with a current prevalence rate of 1 in 88 children, and according to (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2012) ASD has become the fastest-growing disability in USA. ASD is a widespread and complex developmental disorder that affects people from different social races and classes around the world, and where increase in the number of Autistic children has comprehesive behaviors on public and private schools, and special education centers [3]. Autism characteristics and emotional and behavioral problems, have been widely discussed in regard to parenting pressures, and frequently Autistic children show a variety of unique behavior patterns; in terms of element use, personal relationships, and verbal and non-verbal communication.

These unique procedures, known as Autism behaviors distinguish Autistic children from usually develop children and are often associated with developmental and educational challenges [2,6]. Autistic children and their families are in danger of a variety of unfavorable behaviors and problems; as a result of simultaneous behavioral disorders that can hinder the behavior of children's daily performance, education, and intervention outcomes which prevent them from advancing in various developmental areas [7]. However, multiple alternative paths will be identified to develop behavior problems within the framework of evolutionary pathological psychology, which may contribute to these paths, and as a result, researchers have looked at the importance of many risks and protection factors to predict courses of behavior problems; in children and adolescents from the general population, where many factors have been discovered which can affect risks of adaptive and non-adaptive outcomes [8].

For instance, negative emotional moods and early deficiencies in selfregulation processes have been recognized to forcast the internal and external behavior matters; at the teenager level [8,9], as well as linking early language impairment with the increase in violence risk, especially when accompanied by problems in controlling emotions and regulating mood concerning children's age [10]. Researches showed that most aggressive tendencies among children decrease significantly during their development [11]. It’s very important to understand variables that contribute to the creation and continuation of such problems because behavioral problems have a significant impact on performance and health of Autistic children and their families, where information may help health care providers to develop and implement the successful preventive programs and interventions [12]. Through the work of researchers and their direct supervision on trained students at the special education centers and the field training course of diploma students in measurement and diagnoses of autism disorders major, as one of the educational programs taught by Al-Balqa Applied University in Jordan. Researchers noticed some different behavioral effects of ASD children, which drew their attention to this matter.

Study questions

The current study came to identify the behavioral effects of ASD children in special education centers, by answering the following questions:

Q.1: What is the behavioral consequences on ASD children at the special education centers?

Q.2: Are there statistically significant differences of (a=0.05) in the level of the behavioral consequence level of ASD children at the special education centers; due to children age, gender, and staying period?

Study purpose and importance

The current study aims to identify the behavioral consequences of children; from standpoint of teachers at the special education centers in Jordan. The study's importance comes from its real contribution to future researches, by adding educational literature, knowledge, previous studies, results, and tools to the Arab Library. Its importance also comes from benefits to Autistic children; at the special education centers and the guidance of workers in this category to avoid inappropriate behavioral consequences by providing educational, therapeutic, and behavioral interventions for ASD children [13].

Methods

Researchers designed a descriptive study using the survey to conduct this investigation and to answer study questions they used the descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. Researchers obtained ethical approval from Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Al-Balqa Applied University, as well as acquiring enlightened approval from participants and the permission of facilities. Participants were free to leave the study at any time and data collected would remain confidential.

Study participant

The study society and its sample included 30 out of 160 public, private, special, voluntary, and international institutions and centers of special education in Jordan; which provide educational programs and services for children with mental disabilities and the ASD children in the Northern Region, according to institutions guide for persons with disabilities issued by the Supreme Council of Disabled Persons Affairs in H.K. of Jordan 2010, as shown in (Table 1):

Procedure

The preparation process of this study has gone through several stages:

• Inventory of institutions, centers, and schools that provide its educational programs and services to children with mental disabilities and ASD children; in terms of numbers and distribution places by returning to special education directorates at the Ministry of Social Development and the General Federation of Charities, and using Special Education Institutions and Centers issued by the Supreme Council for Disabled Persons Affairs/ 2010.

• Collect information about schools for people with special needs which educate Autism students and students with physical, psychological, and mental disabilities. Whenever children become unable to continue in their public schools, these special schools will provide children with comprehensive services that include academic, medical, and psychological care.

• Hire several specialists to help with the implementation, after training them on the way to use the tool.

• Provide trained specialists with the study tool to implement instrument and collect the necessary data to achieve study objectives.

• Translate the questionnaire into the Arabic language because some teachers in the listed centers aren’t English speakers.

• Visit special education institutions and centers, and supervisors and officials of special education to measure the applicability of dimensions or indicators with the reality of existing programs, which took two months of 2021. Researchers were able to reach 28 institutions and centers that offer their programs to children with mental disabilities, and ASD children in the North region, which make up 93% of study population.

• Analyze tool results to answer the study questions related to behavioral consequences among ASD children at the special education centers.

Measures

Researchers collected data using the questionnaire by distributing it on teachers face-to-face while doing their duty and through the self-completion method, where it took about 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire which allowed researchers to collect quantitative data; in a unified way in order for it to be internally reliable and comprehensible for analysis [14]. For the purposes of current study, the questionnaire built by researchers based on literatures [15-17], where the tool in its final form consists of 27 questions related to the behavioral consequences of ASD children and responses on it were within 4 options (never, sometimes, often, and always) as shown in the appendix 1.

Results

Q.1: What is the level of behavioral consequences on ASD children at special education centers? To answer this question, researchers calculated arithmetic means and standard deviations for the impact level of behavioral consequences on ASD children, at the special education centers; as shown in (Table 2) below:

Q.2: Are there statistically significant differences of (a=0.05) on the behavioral consequence level of ASD children at special education centers, due to age, gender, and staying period?

To answer this question, researchers calculated means and standard deviations for the impact level of behavioral consequences among ASD children in special education centers, according to age, gender, and staying period as shown in (Table 3) below:

(Table 3) shows an apparent variation in arithmetic means and standard deviations of the level of the behavioral consequence among Autistic children at special education centers, due to the difference in categories of age, gender, staying period variables, and to indicate the statistical differences between means researchers used Three- Way ANOVA, as shown in (Table 4) below:

• There are statistically significant differences (a=0.05); due to age, where Fvalue amounted to 18,683 with a statistical significance of (p=0.000), where researchers used Post Hoc Comparisons of Scheffe’ Test to show statistical significant Pairwise Comparisons between means, as shown in (Table 5) below: • There are statistically significant differences (a=0.05); due to gender, where F-value amounted to 5,045 with a statistically significant of (p=0.027) and in favor of males. • There are statistically significant differences (a=0.05); due to staying period, where F-value amounted to 11.937 with a statistically significant of (p=0.000), where researchers used Post Hoc Comparisons of Scheffe’ Test to show statistical significant Pairwise Comparisons between means, as shown in (Table 5) below:

(Table 5) shows statistically significant differences (a=0.05) between more than 10 yrs. and each of less than 5 yrs. and 5-10 yrs.; in favor of more than 10 yrs.

It shows from (Table 6) shows statistically significant differences (a=0.05) between less than 2 yrs. and each of greater than 5 yrs. and 2-5 yrs.; in favor of more than 2 yrs.

Discussion

This study tested behaviors of ASD children during school and their contacts with classmates and educators, where the study analyzed previous results and added to it information of potential behavioral difficulties associated with ASD. It also aimed to examine the distinctive impact of children's age, gender, and other social-demographic features on external and internal behavior problems of ASD children school.

Study included children from different age groups, such as less than 5 yrs. old, 5-10 yrs., and more than 10 yrs., where the highest percentage of children participating in this study belong to students’ category of 5-10 yrs. old, with more than 40% of the study sample. M ales and female representation in the sample was almost identical, with a minor increase of males with 52.9% compared with 47.1% for females. In regards to staying period of surveyed students at the school, most of them joined recently with a period of fewer than 2yrs. Based on results analysis, researchers found that most ASD children would "Spend more time alone" with a mean of 2.59 +.569, which comes in line with the study findings of [18]. The study also found that the most common behavioral disorders of ASD children related to their tendencies to be isolated and feel nervous whenever they meet new people or situations. In addition, ASD children avoid sharing their belonging with other children which comes in agreement with previous studies’ results, such as [7,19].

There are statistically significant differences due to the impact of age, gender, and staying period with P<0.0, where study results indicated that students of more than 10 yrs. old had larger behavioral disorders than their peers of younger ages, which come in line with results of formatting citation study’s. In addition, results showed that behavioral consequence level of male students was higher than females, and that the staying period of students at the school had an impact on shaping behavioral consequences level, which was higher for students who spent two years or more at the school.

Regarding study limitations, the assessment of behaviors using quantitative methods may consider a limitation to this study because it was not accompanied by any qualitative data to support the research; even further. Furthermore, other methodologies like participant observation could be better to evaluate students’ real behaviors. Future researchers need to pay attention to these variables whenever examining children's characteristics on the development of behavior consequences among ASD children.

children tend to be isolated and apprehensive when meeting new people or situations. Students over the age of ten had more behavioral problems than their younger peers. Male students had higher levels of behavioral consequences than female students, and length of time spent at school had an impact on the level of behavioral issues.

Study Limitations

Objective Limits: behavioral consequences of ASD children at the special education centers

Human Limits: teachers of special education centers

Temporal Limits: the first semester/ 2021

Spatial Limits: the northern governorates of H.K. of Jordan (Irbid, Mafraq, Jerash, and Ajloun)

Tool: sequometeric characteristics represented in validity and reliability

Conflict of Interest

0041uthors declare they have no conflict of interest

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank study members and families for their cooperation.

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Citation: Ayasrah MN, AL khateeb AA, Bani Ahmad TH, et al. "Behavioral Consequences Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders at the Special Care Centers". Clin Schizophr Relat Psychoses 15S2 (2022) doi: 10.3371/ CSRP.MMWY.100123

Copyright: © 2022 Ayasrah MN, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.