Exclusionary Time Out To Improve Parents Of Children With Autism' Knowledge To Manage Tantrums

Abstract

Tantrums can be frustrating for any parent, especially parents of children with autism because it is more frequent and difficult to manage. Previous studies have shown that one strategy to manage tantrums in children with autism is exclusionary time out technique. The problem is, parents are often wrong in how to handle it, this is caused by a lack of understanding of the right strategy. The objective of this study was to determine whether exclusionary time out technique can improve parents' knowledge to manage tantrums. This study was conducted based on a quasi-experiment research method with a one-group pretest-posttest design which involved five parents aged 29–36 of children with autism. Data were collected using a questionnaire with 20 questions to measure the parents' knowledge about exclusionary time out technique. The collected data were analyzed using Wilcoxon test to test the hypothesis. Result of this study showed a value of Z = -2.060 and p = 0.039 < 0.05 so H0 was rejected. Thus, there was a statistically significant different between pre-test and post-test. This study found that exclusionary time out technique effectively improve parents of children with autism' knowledge to manage tantrums.

Keywords: Exclusionary time out technique; Tantrums; Parents