Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorders are a collection of related disorders that effect children's social growth and ability to communicate. The present study aimed at defining the efficacy of social attention and communication educational program on nurses' skills concerning early identification of infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder at Imam Hossein Specialized hospital in Isfahan.

Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study. The study population comprised of all nurses working at Imam Hossein Specialized Hospital, who were selected through convenient sampling (n = 40), and were then randomly assigned to study and control groups (n = 20, n = 20). Nurses' skills were assessed by Social Attention and Communication Study (SACS) checklist (Barbaro, 2011). The educational program was conducted for the study group during three sessions. Finally, the post hoc test was administrated in both study and control groups.

Results: Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) test showed a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of nurses' skills in early identification of infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the study and control groups (P = 0.001). There was also a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores of nurses' skill in early detection of communication signs in infants and toddlers at risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder in study and control groups (P = 0.001).

Conclusions: The results showed that nurses' training program known as "social interest relationship" could be used to detect risk for autism spectrum disorders and to continue the treatment at 8 months.