Évaluation d’un programme francophone de formation aux habiletés parentales dans le cadre des troubles du spectre de l’autisme auprès d’un groupe pilote

Abstract

ObjectivesAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are not only affecting the development of the child diagnosed with this disorder, but also their entire family. Parents of children with ASD face many challenges that affect their well-being and family's quality of life. These parents need support to understand their child's diagnosis, to face maladaptive behaviors and to promote skill acquisition. Parent training programs (PT) are known to increase parents’ knowledge and skills in these areas. The potential benefits for the families are reduced stress for parents, improvements in the child's development and better parent–child interactions. Unfortunately, a few structured PTs are available to French-speaking families with an ASD child. In order to provide them with this type of intervention, we developed a French parent training named “L’A.B.C. du comportement de l’enfant ayant un TED/TSA: Des parents en action!” and based on applied behavior analysis. The application and evaluation of this new intervention technique follow the recommendations for research studies on psychosocial interventions for individuals with ASD. Therefore, an initial efficacy study has been conducted to establish the promise of this PT. This paper presents the results of the first group of parents. MethodsA group of ten parents attended 12 bimonthly sessions of 2h and three individual home visits. They progressively learned behavioral intervention strategies to face disruptive behaviors and enhance their children's communication and adaptive skills. Six parents (three couples) of three children with ASD (ages 4–6) participated in this study. Measures of efficacy were taken pre- and post-treatment assessment and at a 3-month follow-up: parent's level of knowledge in ASD and behavioral intervention strategies, parenting stress, parent's number of depressive symptoms, children's adaptive functioning and problem behaviors. Parents were also asked for their opinion on the social validity of the program: adequacy of the objectives, acceptability of the methods and satisfaction of the results. ResultsParents have significantly improved their knowledge in ASD and behavioral intervention strategies in post-treatment. Four parents reported an improvement in their child's behavior at the end of the PT, but for the two others, the PT was not enough to manage the behavior problems of their son with an Asperger Syndrome. They suggest a specific PT for parents who have a child with Asperger syndrome. All of the participants evaluated the methods used as acceptable and the objectives targeted by the PT as important and necessary for parents of children with ASD. Moreover, all of them recommended this PT to others families and considered continuing using the behavioral intervention strategies they had learned. ConclusionsThis new French PT program seems to be a feasible and promising intervention for parents of young children with ASD and developmental delay. The content of the PT will be refined and tested on a larger group before being manualized.