Effectiveness of the Reinforcement Parent Education Program Designed for Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder on Supporting Positive Behaviours

This study aims to examine the effect of the Effective Reinforcement Use Parent Education Program, which was developed for parents with children with autism spectrum disorder. The program was based on scientific-based practices and developed to ensure that children exhibit positive behaviors, increase and generalize these behaviors. The exploratory sequential mixed method, which is one of the mixed methods, was used. The study first started with a qualitative method. After taking the opinions of the participants, the data were analyzed and then the quantitative phase started. In the qualitative phase, interviews were conducted with 10 parents using the semi-structured interview form. In the quantitative phase of the study, an experimental design with a pre-test post-test control group was adopted. The sample of the quantitative phase consists of 24 parents with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Research data were analyzed in two stages. Descriptive analysis was used for the analysis of qualitative data. To determine the effectiveness of the Effective Reinforcement Use Parent Education Program developed to increase the positive behavior of students with ASD, the achievement test developed within the scope of the research was applied to the experimental and control groups as pretest and post-test. Considering the sample size and normality distribution test results, the Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon test conducted to test the significance between the pre-test and post-test scores. In the light of the findings and effect size analysis, the program may be regarded as an effective parent education program.