Abstract
Objective: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by social and unsocial difficulties. The psychiatric disease in parents with ASD diagnosed children were mostly anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder. Although studies were conducted on metacognition, the theory of mind in families for ASD, no studies were detected in which they were evaluated together. This study aimed to examine the metacognition, theory of mind, non-functional attitudes, and automatic thoughts of mothers with children diagnosed with ASD by comparing these mothers with mothers who had healthy children.
Methods: A total of 50 mothers with children diagnosed with ASD and 50 healthy control group were included in our study. The Hospital Anxiety-Depression Scale (HADS), Metacognition Questionnaire (MCQ-30), Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ), Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS), and Reading the Mind in the Eyes Scale-Eyes Test (RMET) were applied to the participants.
Results: No significant differences were detected among the sociodemographic data of the participants. The mean age of the mothers with ASD-diagnosed children was 34.9±5.16, and that of the mothers with healthy children was 35.54±9.45. Both anxiety and depression scores of the mothers with ASD-diagnosed children were calculated as higher than the healthy control group (p values were calculated as p<0.01 for both sub-scales, respectively). High scores were obtained by the group of mothers whose children were diagnosed with ASD in all subscales of the ATQ compared to the healthy control group mothers (for all sub-scales, p<0.01). The RMET performance of the mothers with children diagnosed with ASD was poor (it was calculated as p=0.002). No significant differences MCQ and DAS scores of the groups (p>0.05).
Conclusion: It was determined that the depression and anxiety scores of the mothers with ASD-diagnosed children were high. In addition, it was also determined that they had more automatic thoughts and had lower eyes test performance scores. Integrating these children into the society, and eliminating the difficulties experienced by their parents are very important both for developing a positive perspective of these parents and reducing the likelihood of psychiatric illness.

Key words: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mother, Metacognition, Theory of Mind, Cognitive Distortions.