Background : Parent-mediated interventions (PMI) are an underutilised but effective approach in improving children with autism spectrum disorder's (ASD) communication, social, self-care, play, and behavioural issues as well as promoting parents' quality of life and psychological wellbeing. The Developmental, Individual-difference, and Relationship-based (DIR)/Floortime® intervention approach is one of the PMis often utilised with children with ASD and has been recommended to be offered to families of children with ASD by the Malaysia Ministry of Health. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the impact/sofa parent-mediated home-based intervention program based on the DIR/Floortime® model on children with ASD's pretend play, child-parent interactions, parents' quality oflife, psychological wellbeing and parenting cometence, as well as its applicability among families of children with ASD in the Malaysian cross-cultural context. The intervention program based on the DIR/Floortim.....

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Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience a lower quality of life, which impacts on their children’s care, functioning and outcome and requires assessment and monitoring. Malaysia is a country presenting with an increasing prevalence of ASD and needs a linguistically and culturally appropriate quality of life measurement for parents of children with ASD. The Quality of Life in Autism Questionnaire (QoLA) is a validated ASD-specific quality of life measure in English. This paper describes the translation and the cross-cultural adaptation process of the QoLA from English into Malay. The translated Malay version of QoLA exhibited reasonable levels of internal consistency, cross-cultural validity, face and content validity; and is ready to be used with Malay speakers..

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Purpose: The developmental, individual-difference and relationship (DIR)/Floortime? approach is a commonly used parent-implemented intervention with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Currently, no evidence is available about the intervention?s implementation and utility in Malaysia. The aim of this paper is to investigate the applicability and impact of implementing the parent-implemented home-based DIR/Floortime? intervention program for children with ASD and their parents in a Malaysian context from parents? perspectives. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with eight mothers and four fathers of children with ASD was conducted. The interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Findings: Five themes were developed. Theme 1 described the implementation of DIR/Floortime? intervention; Theme 2 reported challenges parents faced when implementing the intervention; Theme 3 explored parents? perspective on play; Theme 4.....

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Play is important for children’s development and used as teaching and learning tool for children. Children’s skills including physical, emotion, social and cognitive are potentially to develop that could transform children into their full potential. Play is effective in supporting children’s development and learning when it is child-directed and focuses on play as the main aim with development and learning as the by-product. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) faced multifaceted challenges and resulted in receiving little benefit from play. This qualitative study through in-depth semi-structured interviews explores parents of children with ASD’s perspectives about child-led play for children with ASD. Analysis of the interviews found that children with ASD were able to engage in child-led play activities at home and showed positive outcomes in their play, social, language and communication skills as well as their prosocial behaviour. Although positive outcomes have bee.....

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Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenalpasti perkembangan kecerdasan spiritual kanak­ kanak  prasekolah   melalui  bermain.  Ini adalah  kajian  pemerhatian  yang telah dijalankan di sebuah Pusat Anak  Permata Negara (PAPN) di bawah seliaan Bahagian Pendidikan Awal Kanak-kanak (PERMATA), Jabatan  Perdana Menteri bertempat di Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya. Subjek kajian yang terlibat adalah  seramai 19 orang kanak-kanak berumur daripada dua hingga lima tahun. Pemerhatian semulajadi tidak  berstruktur dijalankan dalam tempoh sebulan bagi memerhatikan tingkah laku kanak­ kanak berkaitan  dengan kerohanian semasa bermain. Aktiviti bermain subjek kajian dirakam dan dikodkan mengikut  peratusan masa menunjukkan 24 tingkah laku sepanjang tempoh aktiviti diperhatikan. Video  pemerhatian dikodkan oleh dua koder dan telah dinilai kebolehpercayaan inter-rater menggunakan  ujian korelasi intra-kelas. Hasil  ujian  menunjukkan  hampir  kesemua  pemerhatian  mempunyai Â.....

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Pretend play is one of the most beneficial and complex forms of play that promotes a myriad of children’s development. Children’s engagement in pretend play can be influenced by their genders, age, material or toys available, and adults’ support. Pretend play has been long studied globally, however, there is still a dearth of available information about it in the Malaysian context. This study explored 85 young children’s engagement in pretend play at home from the perspectives of parents, the differences in engagement based on children’s age and gender; and the perceived benefits of pretend play for young children. Children mostly engage in pretend play at home alone, with siblings and their parents. Children as young as 2 years old engaged in from the simplest to the complex form of pretend play. However, no statistical differences were found in pretend play engagement across age and gender groups. Most parents perceive that pretend play is beneficial for children’s develo.....

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