Title Home Education for Children with Autism Spectrum

Disorder during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Indonesian

Mothers Experience
Journal Research in Developmental Disalities
Impact Factor, Q 3.0 (2021), Q2
Authors Nurussakinah Daulay
Reviewers Group : 2nd (Rifaatul Mahmudah, Alya Noer Jafar, and
Aqil Marwan)
Date Friday, October 7th, 2022
Background The introduction to the article we reviewed explained
about the massive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
which hampered many activities, both in the corporate and
education sectors. This article also describes autism
spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a neurodevelopmental
disorder characterized by difficulties in interests,
activities, communication and social interactions with
restricted and repetitive behavior patterns. The author also
explains that the number of ASD children in various
countries continues to increase with the latest data
showing a rapid increase to 1 in 59, while in 2013 children
with autism in Indonesia were 1 in 50. Home education for
children with autism disorders is an alternative learning
for ASD children with the advantage of preventing ASD
children from becoming victims of bullying. However,
several studies also explain that home education has
obstacles, one of which is the limited knowledge of
parents about the condition of ASD children so that it can
allow the implementation of home education to be less
than optimal.
In the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia Article 31
paragraph 1 which states that every country has the right
to education, and this is the seriousness of the Indonesian
government towards the rights of children with growth
and development disorders. In this article the author also
explains that during the pandemic research on ASD
children was carried out in 3 countries, namely the
Philippines, Zimbabwe, and Italy, all of which were
constrained by parents in educating ASD children at
home.
Aim From the background that we have studied, what we can
use as a aims is to explore the experiences of mothers and
efforts to implement home education for autistic children,
during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. In addition,
the implementation of home education during the
pandemic was not optimal due to the increasing
maladaptive behavior of autistic children, low
adaptability, parenting burden, and negative emotions that
arise. Appropriate coping strategies were also observed to
assist mothers in reducing barriers to implementing home
education and parenting stress.
Methods The research method used in the research of this article is
a qualitative phenomenological approach. As well as
recruiting 5 mothers to be interviewed online, because the
data obtained were examined through the use of thematic
analysis.
Result and discussion The Covid-19 pandemic had switched formal educational
system previously carried out conventionally at school to
home education ("school from home"), requiring mothers
to teach their children in their houses. The adaptability of
parents to change, especially mothers, is the key to
children’s success in their education (Corcoran, Berry, &
Hill, 2015).
When someone is confronted with a stressful situation and
immediately reacts, the reaction was called a coping
response. Moreover, in this study, there were two types of
coping strategies used by mothers to deal with the
difficulties they encountered.
The results of this study differed from that of two previous
studies on home education for ASD children, during the
COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines (Cahapay, 2020)
and Zimbabwe (Majoko & Dudu, 2020), as regards coping
strategies being used as 7 N. Daulay Research in
Developmental Disabilities 114 (2021) 103954 mothers’
effort to minimize stress and difficulties encountered, while
implementing house learning.
However, Western parents focus more on individualistic
self-benefit, as they tend to use self-focused coping
strategies, such as passive appraisal and avoidance
(Sawang, Oei, & Goh, 2006; Twoy, Connolly, & Novak,
2007).
Conclusion It can be seen from the research results of this article, the
obstacles faced by these mothers are not easy to carry out
home education for ASD children during the pandemic in
Indonesia. Maladaptive behaviors such as hyperactivity,
poor adaptability, emotional problems, and poor social
skills cause mothers to experience parenting stress which
ultimately results in a decrease in the quality of parenting.
For this reason, several ways have been designed, one of
which is by holding online parenting training with the
theme "how to improve parents' welfare, attention, sense
of gratitude, and empowerment of parents."
Deficiency Firstly, this study only involved mothers as the parent of
ASD children, as the information regarding the
implementation of home education is likely to be more
comprehensive, when fathers are also involved as research
participants. Secondly, this study used a qualitative
approach, and was limited to the experiences of
participants, as results were not generalized to the home
education encounters of mothers caring for children with
other types of special needs.