6.21 Teaching Parents to Facilitate Interaction Between Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typically Developing Peers

Abstract

This poster reviews behavioral outcomes from a randomized controlled trial of the Social SUCCESS program. SUCCESS is a naturalistic behavioral intervention that combines an inclusive social group for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with parent training for setting up effective play dates. A total of 23 children with ASD (4-6 years old; Verbal IQ >70) were randomly assigned to SUCCESS (N = 11) or delayed treatment (delayed treatment group [DTG]; N = 12). SUCCESS participants received 12 social group sessions with typical peers, with therapists arranging cooperative activities to reinforce initiations to peers. Parents attended weekly training to learn behavioral strategies for facilitating peer interactions, and coaching during social-group sessions. DTG participants continued stable community-based services. Acquired skills were measured in both groups at baseline (BL) and posttreatment (PT) using coding from videos of parent-facilitated peer interaction and free play. Parents in the SUCCESS group showed greater change in the number of prompts provided to their child from BL to PT (mean change = 5 additional prompts in 10 minutes; SD = 8.2), compared to minimal change in DTG (mean change = 1.2; SD = 6.2). The greatest increase was in prompting children with ASD to make requests, a skill directly taught during parent training. When their parents used these strategies, children in the SUCCESS group showed a greater increase in the frequency of prompted behavior regulation initiations to peers between BL (M = 1.3; SD = 1.6) and PT (M = 4.3; SD = 2.8), compared to children in the DTG (BL M = 2.6, SD = 2.8; PT M = 2.5, SD = 2.7, F = 6.9, p = 0.015). Children in SUCCESS also showed a greater increase in prompted and unprompted initiations across both parent-facilitated and free-play probes than children in DTG (p = 0.001). Lastly, children in the SUCCESS group increased the number of peer-directed initiations by 56% (p = 0.001), whereas initiations directed toward parents decreased by 38%. Parents of children with ASD can effectively implement naturalistic behavioral strategies for motivating children with ASD to communicate with typical peers. When they do so, their children direct more initiations to peers and fewer to adults, showing promise for enhancing social motivation for peer interactions through parent training.