Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation on Fear of Negative Evaluation and Internalized Stigma of Mothers with Autistic Children

The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of behavioral activation on fear of negative evaluation and internalized stigma of mothers with autistic children. The study population included mothers with children suffering of autism spectrum disorders in Isfahan that of these, 28 mothers were selected by purposive sampling method based on inclusion criteria and randomly assigned to two groups of experimental and control, 14 subjects each. The experimental research design was pre-test, post-test with control and follow-up groups. Subjects responded to the research questionnaires, including Larry (1983) Fear of Negative Evaluation Questionnaire and McVeok (2010) Internalized Stigma Questionnaire. The experimental group participated in a group behavioral activation course for 8 sessions of 90 minutes; but for the control group, no intervention was performed and a month and a half later, the follow-up stage was performed. The data were analyzed using one way and multi varriate analysis of covariance in. The results showed that behavioral activation was effective on fear of negative evaluation and internal astigma of mothers with autistic children. The results were consistent in follow-up.