Social and Communication Outcomes for Young Children With Autism

Overview

The goal of this project is to test an intervention program for caregivers and their young children with autism that is focused on improving social communication. This study specifically targets underserved populations, specifically children from low SES and racial/ethnic minority families. Participants will include 40 children (aged 24 months to 60 months) and their caregivers who will be randomized (as if by flipping a coin) to one of the two treatments: Parent education sessions for two hours a week for 12 weeks or parent-child intervention sessions with the child for one hour, twice a week for 12 weeks. Young children with autism have difficulty with engaging in joint attention with others (e.g. pointing, showing. Joint attention skills are important to later development of language. Therefore, targeting this problem in young children may result in better language outcomes for these children. In order to examine the effects of the interventions, all participants will be complete cognitive, language, communication and play-based assessments prior to treatment, at the end of the first 12 weeks of the intervention, and post-treatment immediately following the intervention (approximately 2.5 to 3 hours each).

Child/parent dyads will be randomized to one of two intervention conditions: (1) Parent-child model, also known as the Caregiver Education Model (CMM):focuses on joint attention/engagement intervention using an established evidence based treatment (Kasari et al., 2006). It involves individual interventionist meetings with the parents and their children in their homes for one hour, twice a week for 12 weeks. In this intervention, the parent-child pair meet with the interventionist (as opposed to the group training in the CEM condition). Parents will be specifically taught techniques for altering the home environment and ways to enhance children's language, social, and play development. Parents will given guided practice (input and coaching from the interventionist) as they implement these techniques with their child. (2)Parent-education intervention, also known as the Caregiver Education Model (CEM): focuses on teaching parents information about autism, behavior modification, and community services using a manualized approach (Brereton \& Tonge, 2005). Parents will receive information on child development each week, and will be able to ask questions and discuss the information vis-à-vis their own child. This intervention is manualized (Brereton \& Tonge 2005). In the CEM condition, parents meet in a group, without their children, in a community-based setting to receive the intervention. Intervention in both conditions occurs for 2 hours for 12 weeks.