Applied Behavior Analysis, Therapy in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Bachelor's thesis focuses on applied behavioural analysis and therapy for children suffering from autism spectrum disorder. The Bachelor's thesis aims at analysing the opinion of parents of children with ASD on applied behavioural analysis. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical section contains six chapters discussing the theoretical definition of autism spectrum disorders and applied behavioural analysis. The practical part consists of a quantitative research strategy using a questionnaire survey method. The respondents were the parents of children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. A total of 205 respondents participated in the research. The obtained data were assessed using descriptive statistics in MS Excel software; the hypotheses were tested using IBM SPSS statistical software applying t-test and ANOVA techniques. The research results indicated that the awareness of parents of children diagnosed with ASD about the applied behavioural analysis is relatively high; nevertheless, a significant percentage of respondents had never been informed about this approach. Based on the research results, the attitude of parents of children with ASD towards applied behavioural analysis appears to be neutral. Parents generally did not observe any effects when the applied behavioural analysis was used. The first hypothesis investigated whether any positive effects of applied behavioural analysis were influenced by the type of autism, while the second hypothesis tested whether the age of their child influenced parents' more positive attitudes towards applied behavioural analysis. However, neither hypothesis was confirmed; the results failed to indicate any statistically significant difference. The Bachelor's thesis may provide feedback to therapists or organisations practising applied behaviour analysis. It may also help raise awareness of the therapy for parents of children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder