Developing a Group Intervention Programme to Enhance Communication Interaction for Parents of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Background:

Group-based parent training is a cost-effective way of providing early intervention in resourced constrained settings, such as South Africa. Parent training literature from developed countries indicates that parent training improves sense of parenting competence and self-efficacy. However, limited parent training programs have been adapted for implementation in low-and-middle income (LAMI) countries, and even fewer have been developed and evaluated within LAMI contexts. This presentation describes the development and piloting of a group-based parent training program to facilitate the communication development of young children with ASD living in South Africa.

Objectives:

Four objectives will be discussed in this presentation:

1) To describe the content development of the program

2) To determine the program's social validity by soliciting feedback from professionals.

3) To pilot the program with a group of parents to determine the program's effect on parenting self-efficacy.

4) To determine the program's social acceptability by soliciting feedback from pilot participants.

Methods: The content of the training program was developed based on an extensive literature search for communication strategies which have a positive impact on child communication development and could be taught to parents. Four strategies were ultimately selected namely: environmental arrangement, contingent responding, modelling and expansion of language and creating opportunities to talk. To determine the social validity of the program an expert panel of 5 professionals (2 psychologists, 2 speech language pathologists, and an occupational therapist) were asked to evaluate the program. They were given access to the program manual, power point presentation materials and the video modelling material. Twenty-five parents completed the program. Pre-and post-test measures of parenting self-efficacy were collected using the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC). They were asked to provide both qualitative and quantitative information about the social acceptability of the program.

Results:

Professionals were asked to rate the program on a 4-point Likert scale across 4 criteria (the relevance of the content, the comprehensiveness of the content, the relevance of the teaching tools, and the relevance of the delivery methods). Professionals rated all criteria either a 3 or 4, indicating they felt that the program content was appropriate and relevant. Pilot data indicate that parents' average PSOC efficacy score after training (M = 37.26, SD = 4.27) was significantly higher (indicating higher self-efficacy levels) than their average PSOC efficacy score before training (M = 34.27, SD = 3.48), with t(24) = -3.26, p < .003, d = 1.33. Eighteen parents (75%) reported they felt confident to use these strategies in play and daily routines. Twenty-one (84%) parents felt confident they could use at least 1 of the strategies at home with their child. Contingent responding was the strategy that parents reported they were most likely to use at home.

Conclusions:

The feedback from parents and professionals indicated that the program content was appropriate within the South African context. Data from the pilot study indicates that the program can improve parenting self-efficacy levels. Future research should determine if the COMPASS program positively impacts on the way in which parents interact with their child.