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Treatments Priorities of Saudi Parents for Their Children with ASD
Identifying parents’ treatment priorities prior to treatment planning is critical. No information about parents’ treatment priorities for their children with ASD in the Arab World.
Objectives:
To identify the treatment priorities that parents in the KSA have for their children with ASD. A second aim of the study was to determine whether child characteristics reflect on parent priorities.
Methods:
Data were collected from 156 caregivers of children with ASD who participated in a project aim to evaluate ASD in the KSA. The percentages of priorities were calculated identify the highest area of need. Chi-Square was used to examine the association between parent priorities and child characteristics.
Results:
The top treatment priorities were toileting and communication, followed by safety, school achievement, relationship with peers, sensory needs, problem behaviors, adaptive skills, relationship with siblings, feeding, community outings, compliance, sleeping issues, repetitive behaviors, parent-child interaction, and greeting. Parents’ treatment priorities differed by child characteristics such age, gender, and severity of the ASD symptoms.
Conclusions:
Parent priorities tended to be higher in areas where children have the greatest deficits or show emerging skills, thus emphasizing on the importance on targeting the assessment of children’s deficits and emergent skills for treatment planning.