Development of autistic children based on maternal responses to the Autism Behavior Checklist.

BACKGROUND

language and speech-language intervention.

AIM

to evaluate the development process of autistic children, in a direct and indirect intervention context based on the responses of mothers to the Autism Behavior Checklist.

METHOD

the research sample consisted of 11 mothers of children diagnosed, according to the criteria established by the DSM IVtr (APA, 2002), with autism (six) and with Asperger Syndrome (five) and who were seen at the Investigation Laboratory of Global Developmental Disorders of the Federal University of São Paulo. These children were randomly divided into two groups: Six were receiving both direct and indirect intervention (TG), and five were receiving indirect intervention exclusively (OG). The Autism Behavior Checklist (Krug et al., 1993) was used, adapted to the Portuguese language by Marteleto (2003). This behavior checklist (57 items) allows the detailed description of non-adaptable characteristics regarding the following areas: sensory, use of the body and object, Language, Psycho-social and Relational. The questionnaire was filled in during an interview on three occasions: at the beginning of intervention, after six months and at the end of 12 months.

RESULTS

after statistical analysis it was observed that there was a greater development in the total scores and in the areas of language, psycho-social and relational for the TG. This suggests a greater development pattern during the studied period for this group.

CONCLUSION

the mothers of both groups observed behavioral changes. The better scores observed for the TG is probably related to the effectiveness of direct intervention, and not to the lack of attention of parents in the OG in recognizing behavioral changes in their children.