Social and Communication Outcomes for Young Children With Autism

Status:	Archived
Conditions:	Neurology, Psychiatric, Autism
Therapuetic Areas:	Neurology, Psychiatry / Psychology
Healthy:	No
Age Range:	Any
Updated:	7/1/2011
Start Date:	April 2009
End Date:	December 2011

Optimizing Social and Communication Outcomes for Young Children With Autism

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-Ã -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.

We found this trial at

sites

San Francisco General Hospital

1001 Potrero Ave
San Francisco, California 94110

(415) 206-8000