Research on the Attitudes of Parents of Children with Autism to Preschool Education

Objectives. The preschool age has its crucial importance in the upbringing and education of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The plasticity of psychological organization at this age makes the psycho-educational work the most effective. The aim of presented work is the analysis of characteristics of parents’ attitude of children with autism to preschool education with the follow-up identification of factors that influence this attitude of parents to preschool education and determination of the trajectories for optimizing this attitude in order to increase the ef­fectiveness of accompanying children with ASD in the preschool period.

Methods. A survey of 629 parents or legal representatives of individuals with autism from 43 regions of Russia and the Republic of Belarus was conducted. The age of the respondents’ children varies from 3 to 38 years.

Results. Reported that 86.6% of the children attended preschool educational organizations; 12.3% — did not at­tended; 0.6% preferred not to answer this type of questions. In the period from the second half of the 1980s to 2022, the percentage of children attending preschools increased from 7.8% to 97.0%. However, regardless of age, at least a quarter of families (24—28%) asked for help in other institutions or appealed to the private specialists, which directly indicates dissatisfaction with the support provided by the preschool educational system. Respondents whose children attended preschools mark the general preschool education effects at 3.2+0.1 on a five-point scale. In comparison, all families who assessed preschool have a significantly lower result (P<0.01) — 2.8+0.1. The respondents noted the insufficient level of qualifications of the staff of the preschool educational institution and problems of organizational and methodological support.

Conclusions. Despite the subjective character of the survey, the assessments and comments of parents reflect the real problems of preschool education of children with ASD. In order to develop cooperation between representatives of the preschool system and families raising children with autism, two equivalent areas of work are proposed: raising awareness of parents about autism and the basic supports of children with autism and improving the skills of special­ists working with such children.

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