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Impact of COVID-19 on autism spectrum disorder management - a therapist perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

H. Atturu  and
S. Lakhani
H. Atturu*
Affiliation:
Department Of Psychiatry, CARE Hospitals, Hyderabad, India
S. Lakhani
Affiliation:
Department Of Special Education, Roshini Counselling Centre, Hyderabad, India
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Therapist led interventions form a core element in the management of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in India. COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted several aspects of ASD management.

Objectives

This study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on ASD therapies from a therapist perspective.

Methods

An online survey was conducted using a google form questionnaire disseminated among ASD therapists. The form was open for response between 23rd of June and 23rd of July 2020. The responses were extracted into an excel sheet and analysed using descriptive statistics.

Results

41 out of 75 therapists with mean age of 44 years (21 – 58 years) responded to the survey. 48% were women. Majority of them were either special educators (49%) or ASD therapists (32%) with professional experience of >5 years (63%). Majority of the therapists felt that there is significant disruption during the pandemic with reduction in conventional therapies (63% to 17%) and increase in online therapies (15% to 61%). They also felt that this disruption had moderate to severe impact on child’s learning (73%) and parents emotional and psychological well being (85%). Only 22% of therapists were using digital based therapy (DBT) before the pandemic. Although 51% of the therapists were not entirely sure whether DBT augments parents and therapists’ efforts, majority (65%) were willing to use them.

Conclusions

COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted ASD therapy in India. Willingness to use online and digital based therapies could open up a new dimension. Reliable and effective Artificial-Intelligence based therapies are the need of the day.

Disclosure

Medical advisor for CognitiveBotics

Keywords

autism spectrum disorderDigital based therapyCOVID-19online therapy
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 64 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 29th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2021 , pp. S104
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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