Differences between the Sensory and Behavioral Problems of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder before and after Pandemic Condition of Covid-19: Fathers’ Perspective

Abstract

Autism is a severe disability, and it is one of the pervasive developmental disorders that have many mysterious signs, yet it remains the least understandable but has lifelong effects on the individual. The major objectives of the study were to know the occurrence of sensory and behavioral problems before and after COVID-19 perceived by fathers, 2) know the differences based on the locality of the respondents. The type of research was quantitative. 50 fathers residents of rural and urban areas were selected as a sample of the study by using purposive sampling technique from Lahore and Faisalabad. Researchers have developed a Likert-type questionnaire consisting of two domains, sensory and behavioral domains. Each domain consisted of 22 questions to elicit the responses from the sample. Researchers used the same instrument for knowing before and after covid-19 sensory and behavioral problems of children with autism spectrum disorder, after the pandemic condition of covid-19. The collected data revealed that Sensory problems after COVID-19 ( x ¯ 92.060) are higher than the mean of Sensory problems before COVID-19( x ¯ 64.74). The behavior problems after COVID-19 (x ¯ 83.1800) is higher than the behavior problems before COVID-19( x ¯ 57.880). There is a rise in the severity of the problem after COVID-19.