Abstract:

Autism is one of the pervasive development disorders that effects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, social inclusion. It often includes a restricted pattern of interest and repetitive behaviour and stereotyped movement. It also effects emotions. These difficulties negatively impinge on the educational performance and daily-living skills of autistic children.

Therefore, this study examined the effectiveness of social skills training to enhance social skills of children with autism in Libya. The sample comprised thirty-four autistic children, aged between ten and fifteen years of age. The children were divided into two groups of seventeen; one as the experimental group and the other as the control. The programme ran for twelve weeks and the children’s social skills were assessed before, during and after it was completed.

The program:
The researcher has designed a programme of 24 sessions and each session is 30 minutes. This program is based on three aims.
These aims are:
1. To develop the social skills for autistic children (Eye contact, increase attention span, and follow up of the simple instructions)
2. To develop the social skills for autistic children (knock the door, peace hand to salute, moving the hand to say goodbye, and follow up of the simple instruction)
3. To develop the social skills for autistic children (playing with adult or two people, waiting their turn, and child participation activity organized with children)

This program aims to enhance the different skills in children with Autism spectrum disorders. Sessions 1 to 9 will focus on the first aim. The second aim will be the focus of the sessions from 10 to 15. The third aim based will be the focus of session 16 to 21. The session from 22 to 24 are re-training sessions and each session will be based on each individual aim. Different tools are developed for each session. The researcher will be assisted in the program with the professionals working with the children with autism. The researcher will provide the participant of the experimental groups the training programme by himself. The total number of participants in this research will be thirty-four children with autism. Including two girls aged between ten and fifteen years old respectively. All of these autistic children will be from Benghazi, the second biggest city of Libya. The programme has been designed by and will be implemented by the Researcher in order to enhance these skills in children with Autism spectrum disorders.

Data were analysed using the Statistics Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). In this study two kind of non-parametric statistics were used, the Mann-Whitney-U test and Wilcoxon-Matched Paired Signed-ranks test. The results of the pre-test study revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the social skills between the experimental and control group, because the P > 0.05. However, post-test results did show statistically significant differences in the social skills between the groups with improvements having been made in the experimental group, because the P< 0.05. When tested twenty-one days after the completion of the programme it was clear that the children in the experimental group continued to have better social skills than those children in the control group.

It was concluded, therefore, that the training programme had significantly improved the social skills of autistic children in Libya and it should be implemented on a wider basis.

Keywords:

Autism, Libya, Training, social skills.