An intervention programme to promote social communication skills for prelinguistic children with autism spectrum disorders: “Kids in the Kitchen”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Prelinguistic children with autism often struggle with social communication and language skills. Therefore, fostering these abilities is crucial, especially during early childhood. Teaching parents how to assist their children in these areas can be quite beneficial. ‘Kids in the Kitchen’(KiK) is an intervention programme designed to instruct parents on how to incorporate their children with autism into everyday activities. This study investigates the potential for enhancing language and communication skills while performing household tasks and/or caring for children. It uses a pre-test, post-test, and control-group experimental design to explore the effectiveness of the KiK programme. The research comprised 12 parents in the experimental group (9 women and 3 men) and 12 parents in the comparison group (10 women and 2 men), resulting in a total of 24 parents. The programme included online sessions and video feedback. Researchers examined video records of parent-child interactions before, during, and after the ten-week training, as well as two months following the programme. The researchers completed an observation form that contained target strategies. The post-test and follow-up statistics indicate that parents may have successfully acquired the strategies introduced in the KiK training. They have acquired language promotion strategies, but still require support with communicative temptations.