A parent education and skills training early intervention for children with autism

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/124303

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

Autism is a severely handicapping disorder adversely affecting social interaction, communication, and behaviour, interests and activities. Over the past 9 years our team has conducted a follow-up study of a large group of 111 Australian children and adolescents with autism. The young people have continued to have very high levels of emotional and behavioural disturbance and generally do not improve. Parents of children with autism are under significant amounts of stress; reporting high levels of disturbed family functioning and mental health problems. Although there is no cure, children benefit most when early help is provided (under 5 years). There are several promising interventions based on intensive behaviour and educational management, for example requiring 40 hours per week of therapist contact over 2 years. Such programs are costly and impractical as widely available treatment options. Training parents to understand and manage their child also shows promise. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of a parent skills training and education treatment program compared to supportive therapy, and to generally available community services. The therapists will follow a treatment manual that will ensure a consistent and replicable approach. The progress of the children with autism and their families will be reassessed immediately after treatment, and at 1 and 2 years post-treatment in order to ascertain immediate and long-term effects of the treatment. If treatment proves to be of use, we will have established a defined, cost efficient, practical and effective model of early treatment that can be easily taught to professionals and widely disseminated throughout early childhood services.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2000

End Date: 01-01-2002

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $305,674.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Vision science

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

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Other Keywords

autism | child psychopathology | early intervention | mental retardation | parent education | parent skills training | randomised control trial

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