None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
This aim of this study is to establish the feasibility and preliminary efficacy for a brief parent mediated intervention for parents of children with autism aged between 2-6 years of age. The purpose of this research is to determine the effectiveness and acceptability of an integrated treatment approach that aims to improve maladaptive behaviours and core social communication symptoms in children with autism and parenting, parent-child interactions and parental well-being for their parents. It is hypothesised that this intervention will be acceptable to parents and effective in reducing child externalising behaviours, improving the quality of parent-child interactions and parenting practices.
Interventions
Participants of ParentWorks Spectrum are children diagnosed with autism aged between 2 and 5 years of age and their parents referred to the Sydney Child behaviour Research Clinic who report clinically significant levels of behavioural and/or parenting difficulties.
The aim of this study is to establish the feasibility for a brief, cost effective, integrated intervention for parents of young children with autism, incorporating current evidence-based treatments and empirical knowledge of both chil
Participants of ParentWorks Spectrum are children diagnosed with autism aged between 2 and 5 years of age and their parents referred to the Sydney Child behaviour Research Clinic who report clinically significant levels of behavioural and/or parenting difficulties. The aim of this study is to establish the feasibility for a brief, cost effective, integrated intervention for parents of young children with autism, incorporating current evidence-based treatments and empirical knowledge of both child and family functioning. This study seeks to determine the effectiveness and acceptability of an integrated parent mediated intervention in improving: 1) Child Behavioural difficulties 2) Child core social and communicative symptoms 3) Parenting practices and parental well-being Participants who meet inclusion criteria are invited to attend an initial assessment session. Following this assessment session, participants will then be randomly allocated to the parenting intervention group or to the waitlist control group. Participants allocated to the parenting intervention group will be invited to attend 11 (60-90 minute) 1:1 weekly sessions with a trained clinician (registered psychologist with a minimum of 6 years training) immediately following the initial assessment. Participants allocated to the waitlist control group will be invited to attend 11 (60-90 minute) 1:1 weekly sessions with a trained clinician (registered psychologist with a minimum of 6 years training) three months following the date of the initial assessment. The 12 treatment sessions are divided into three (four session) modules: 1) Managing maladaptive behaviours 2) Enhancing parent-child interactions 3) Enhancing parental teamwork, parenting practices and self-care. Throughout treatment, clinicians work collaboratively with parents to deliver intervention strategies that target child behavioural difficulties, parent-child interactions in addition to parenting difficulties experienced in the context of parenting a child with autism. Session content has been informed by current evidence-based treatments, scientific reviews of relevant scientific literature and the CI’s experience in child behaviour research and clinical work with families. Strategies will be taught to parents through active skills training and will involve role-plays, modelling, rehearsing and feedback.
Sponsors
The University of Sydney
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Primary purpose
Treatment
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
2 Years to 6 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Participants will be children aged 2 to 5 years 11 months with a confirmed diagnosis of autism at baseline and their parents. Parents must be able to attend 12 consecutive weekly sessions. Fluency in English will also be a criterion for inclusion due to the language format of the psychological measures
Exclusion criteria
Child exclusionary criteria include severe comorbid developmental delay (DQ< 35), significant vision, hearing or motor impairment, or a major medical disorder (e.g., cerebral palsy) that impacts the parent’s ability to attend weekly sessions or child involvement in the program or family involvement in engaged in current legal issues including child custody disputes, or current participation in another parenting intervention/research trial.
Outcome results
None listed