Effect of playing in water of Autistic children on their mothers’ stress

Autism is a developmental disorder that can cause parents’ stress, especially for the mothers. Participating of mothers in aquatic interventions can reduce their stress. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of playing in water of autistic children on their mothers’ stress.

For this purpose, 26 mothers with Autistic girls (6-12 years old) were selected and according to the children’s scores in Wechsler and GARS tests were assigned into two groups. Children of the experimental group participated in a program of playing in water for eight weeks. Children of the control group received no intervention. All participants completed (Parenting Stress Index) before and after the intervention. For data analysis, we used two independent sample t-tests and mixed ANOVA (2*2) with repeated measures.

The results showed that participation of children with Autism disorder in the intervention did not have a significant effect on the stress of their mothers (p> 0.05).

Probably the reason of these findings is the severity of the mothers’ psychological problems due to their children’s sever symptoms. The findings suggest that perhaps a longer time is required for effectiveness of the intervention. So it should be considered in future research.