Background

In the modern era, researchers are facing a big challenge in diagnosing autism disorders. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2014 report, the prevalence of autism among children in the United States is approximately 1 out of 88 children; whereas, in South Korea, the prevalence is 1 out of 38. In India, most of the children with autism are yet to be diagnosed partly due to the lack of self-screening test compared to the other countries. Currently, no data is available for analyzing the prevalence of autism in India. In order to improve the behavior, the social interaction, and the verbal communication of these children, scientists are using various kinds of teaching methods.

Objectives

The objectives of this work were to screen the level of autism among school children using Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS-2) questionnaire and evaluate the effects of various teaching methods on social behavior of school children with autism.

Methods and results

Ninety children in the age group between 3 – 16 years from three schools (S1 – 30, S2 – 30 and S3 – 30) with autism are participated in this study. In S1, the autistic children are trained with horseback riding and yoga therapy; whereas in the S2, the children are trained with normal teaching using blackboard and in the S3, the children are trained with cue cards. The GARS-2 questionnaire was used for assessing the communication, the stereotype behavior and the social interaction with the help of parents or the caregivers.

Conclusion

Results of our study revealed that raw and the standard scores of stereotyped behaviors was notably (p<0.05) low in S1 school children when collated with the other two (S2 and S3) schools. Similarly, the raw and the standard score of communication, the socially interaction sub-score was notably (p<0.05) low for the children in S3 when collated with the children in the other two schools. The study concluded that the horseback riding, the yoga therapy and the cue cards-based teaching methods improve the stereotyped behavior, increase concentration power and also helps in maintaining the children's mind stability.

中文翻译：

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对自闭症儿童教学技术的评估

背景

在现代时代，研究人员在诊断自闭症方面面临着巨大的挑战。根据美国疾病控制与预防中心2014年的报告，美国儿童自闭症的患病率约为88名儿童中的1名；然而，在韩国，患病率为38分之一。在印度，与其他国家相比，大多数自闭症儿童仍未得到诊断，部分原因是缺乏自我筛查测试。目前，尚无数据可用于分析印度自闭症的患病率。为了改善这些孩子的行为，社交互动和口头交流，科学家们正在使用各种教学方法。

目标

这项工作的目的是使用Gilliam自闭症评定量表（GARS-2）来筛选小学生的自闭症程度，并评估各种教学方法对自闭症小学生社交行为的影响。

方法与结果

来自三所自闭症学校（S1 – 30，S2 – 30和S3 – 30）的3至16岁年龄段的90名儿童参加了这项研究。在S1中，自闭症儿童接受骑马和瑜伽疗法的培训；在S2中，孩子们使用黑板进行常规教学训练，而在S3中，孩子们使用提示卡训练。GARS-2问卷用于在父母或照顾者的帮助下评估交流，刻板印象行为和社交互动。

结论

我们的研究结果显示，与其他两所学校（S2和S3）进行比较时，S1学龄儿童的刻板印象行为的原始分数和标准分数显着较低（p <0.05）。同样，在与其他两所学校的孩子进行核对时，S3中的孩子的社交交往得分原始分数和标准分数，社交互动子分数也很低（p <0.05）。研究得出结论，骑马，瑜伽疗法和基于提示卡的教学方法改善了刻板印象的行为，增加了专注力，还有助于维持儿童的心理稳定性。