ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Maternal Attitudes and Home-Based Interventions for Enhancing Social, Attention, and Language Skills in Children with Autism in Diwaniyah, Iraq
Provisionally accepted
Aqeel Abd Al-Hamza Marhoon*
Khamees Bandar Obaid- Department of Pediatric Nursing, College of Nursing, University of Babylon, Babylon, Iraq
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) presents significant developmental challenges, particularly in low-resource settings. Maternal attitudes and engagement in home-based interventions are critical for supporting children’s social, attention, and language development. Aims: To assess maternal attitudes toward children with ASD and evaluate the implementation of home-based interventions targeting social, attention, and language skills in Diwaniyah, Iraq. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted between April and August 2025, involving a census sample of 205 mothers of children with ASD from three autism centers in Diwaniyah. Data were collected through structured face-to-face interviews using a validated questionnaire. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 25, with descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests applied to examine the data. Results: The majority of mothers (79.0%) exhibited positive attitudes toward their children with ASD. Positive maternal attitudes were significantly associated with higher education, urban residence, sufficient income, attendance at educational sessions, and absence of family mental illness (p < 0.05). Home-based intervention implementation was high in most domains: 67.3% for social skills, 88.8% for attention, and 67.8% for language. A statistically significant association was found between positive maternal attitudes and the use of home-based interventions targeting social skills (P value = 0.001), but not for attention or language interventions (P values > 0.05). After adjusting for potential confounders, the results show that maternal attitudes were significantly associated only with the likelihood of using home-based interventions within the social domain (adjusted odds ratio = 1.021; 95% CI: 0.208-5.010; p = 0.001). Conclusion: Maternal attitudes significantly influence the implementation of home-based social skill interventions in children with ASD. Strengthening caregiver training and psychosocial support, particularly in underserved areas, is essential to enhance home-based developmental outcomes in low-resource contexts like Diwaniyah.
Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Home-based interventions, Iraq, maternal attitudes, Social skills development
Received: 07 Sep 2025; Accepted: 02 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Abd Al-Hamza Marhoon and Obaid. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aqeel Abd Al-Hamza Marhoon
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.