Examination of Emotion and Social Skills in Primary School Students with Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between emotional adjustment and social skills and the relationship between parents’ socio-demographic characteristics in primary school students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The sample of the study consisted of 60 elementary school students, 30 normal developmental and 30 diagnosed with ASD who were educated in primary schools, who were their parents allowed and accessible. For personal information “personal information formâ€\x9d, for social skills, “Marmara Social-Emotional Adjustment Scaleâ€\x9d and for emotion adjustment skills “emotion regulation scaleâ€\x9d were applied in this study. In the analysis of the obtained data, two independent samples t test, ANOVA test and Pearson correlation techniques were used. According to the findings of the study, primary school students diagnosed with ASD had moderate emotion adjustment and social skills. It was concluded that the emotional adjustment and social skill level of the children diagnosed with ASD did not show a significant difference to the class of the child, mother’s level of education, maternal marital status and maternal working status; social skill level is significantly associated with the child’s age. In the study, a positive and significant relationship was found between emotion adjustment and social skill level and the results were found to be generally parallel to the literature.