Mothers’ Awareness of Sex Education and Training Programs for Children with Autism

Abstract

Individuals with autism require sex education more than others. In particular, mothers provide timely sexual education and safety orientation. However, since parents and caregivers do not understand their children’s sexual requirements, children with autism and other impairments generally get less comprehensive education. Training and assistance lessen the risk of sexual exploitation or abuse. It aimed to discover how much Jordanian mothers know about the sexual abuse of their children with autism and how a training program has helped them learn more. Also, a training program will be used to see how Jordanian mothers’ education level affects their children’s knowledge and development. The research instrument was administered to a random sample of 91 mothers of children with autism in the Ajloun governorate (Jordan). 56 paragraphs cover five dimensions of mothers’ level of knowledge. 12 mothers were trained to understand sexual assault. The awareness scale examined before and after the impact of the training program. The training boosted mothers’ comprehension of sexual abuse statistically. The research sample’s arithmetic means on each dimension of the mothers’ knowledge scale concerning sexual abuse and together owing to the mother’s educational qualification variable were statistically significant. Mothers with bachelor’s or postgraduate degrees learn more than those with secondary education. This study suggests that children with autism may benefit from sex education to lessen sexual assault risks, as well as opportunity to understand healthy sexuality. Parents and schools should provide sex education programs for specific interventions to assist children with autism in understanding their sexual needs.