EFFECT OF APPLIED BEHAVIOUR ANALYSIS ON SOCIAL SKILLS AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF PUPILS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

<strong><em>Objectives:</em></strong><em> Autism is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder. The study investigated the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) amongst primary school pupils in Enugu State, Nigeria.</em> <strong><em>Design:</em></strong><em> Pretest-Posttest non-equivalent control group design, with the experimental group adopting applied behaviour analysis (ABA) intervention and the control group using conventional method. </em> <strong><em>Materials and Methods:</em></strong><em> Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The population comprised all the pupils identified with ASD in Enugu State, Nigeria. The sample comprises 36 pupils identified with ASD in schools used. The instruments were observation schedule, semi-structured interview schedule and 4- point Likert-type questionnaire administered to elicit information on pupils’ social skills while their academic achievement test scores were used to ascertain their academic achievement. Research questions were analysed using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) statistic at 0.05 probability level. </em> <strong><em>Results:</em></strong><em> The results showed that exposing pupils with ASD to ABA intervention boosted their social skills and academic achievement scores. Parents of children exposed to intensive ABA, report greater reductions in daily stress than parents of children with other treatments. </em> <strong><em>Conclusions:</em></strong><em> exposing pupils with ASD to ABA is efficacious in enhancing their social skills and academic achievement.</em>