A Study to Assess the Knowledge of Autism among Primary School Teachers in Selected Schools at Kolar District, Karnataka

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder of brain with reported incidence of 1 in 59 children (approximately 1.7%) in the United States. Children with autism have very vague features or symptoms; thus, health professionals think of autism as a spectrum disorder. Most of the children with autism make no eye interaction and look aloof, while others may demonstrate intermittent involvement with the surroundings and may make unreliable eye contact, smile, and hug. Children may also display varying verbal capacities, ranging from being nonverbal to having progressive talk. Materials and methods: Non-experimental descriptive survey design was conducted among 84 primary school children at Kolar District. Non–probability convenient sampling technique was adopted to choose participants. Structured knowledge questionnaire was designed to gather data from the primary school teachers. Results: Overall findings clearly show that 71.42% had inadequate knowledge, 16.66% had moderate knowledge and none of the teachers had adequate knowledge. Conclusion: Study findings show that primary school teachers had inadequate knowledge on autism hence the study concluded that importance and need of adequate awareness on autism. Keywords: Autism, Non-experimental, Descriptive, Primary school teachers