Study showed parent-led therapy beneficial for kids with autism
A long-term study in the UK has shown that a simple therapy that helps parents interact and communicate better with very young children diagnosed with autism offers benefits years later.
The treatment which involved training mothers and fathers to become “super parents” demonstrated reduced symptoms in children with severe autism for years — until some of the children were 11. The study focused on children with severe autism, who were often unable to talk to their parents.
According to the team at University of Manchester, King’s College London and Newcastle University, it is one of the first such approaches to be shown to actually work.
The researchers’ idea was to work with parents to improve parent-child communication at home.
The team tested 152 children aged 2 to 4 in a study called the Preschool Autism Communication Trial (PACT), which began six years ago.
Parents got 12 therapy sessions for six months, monthly support sessions for the next six months and are asked to spend at least 20 to 30 minutes playing and communicating with their children.
During the training, parents were recorded with their child, who might have been sitting, playing alone.The parents then watched films of themselves playing with their child while a therapist gave precise tips for helping their child communicate.
They were shown a highlights package of the easily-missed moments when the autistic child subtly moved to play with their parents.Communication specialists then worked with the parents to give them the skills to get the most out of these brief moments.
In small steps, it eventually moved on to getting the child to speak more.
It was shown to work early on, and the effects have lasted for years. Kids whose parents got the training showed better social communication and reduced repetitive behaviors compared to children in the study who got usual care for autism.
Among the families who received the parent-led treatment, 55% of the children were severely autistic at the beginning and 46% after six years.In the half of the families given the usual therapies, 50% were severely autistic at the beginning and that percentage predictably increased to 63% after six years.
Prof. Jonathan Green from the University of Manchester, the report’s lead author, said the results were extraordinary. But he also noted that the training was not a cure in that the children who showed improvements will still demonstrate remaining symptoms.
In an interview, he said the research suggested working with parents could lead to long-term improvements.According to Prof. Green, the approach offers advantage over direct therapist-child intervention as it has the potential to affect the child’s everyday life.
In the UK, one in 100 people are in the autism spectrum, which means they develop some degree of autism. In school age, this translates to 140,000 children in the UK.
Autism spectrum disorder refers to a large range of conditions, from the relatively mild symptoms of Asperger’s to severe and profound intellectual deficits and an inability to communicate with others. Symptoms often overlap with other disorders such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, cerebral palsy or various learning disorders.
While there is still no cure or drug treatment available, researchers are beginning to find some bits of evidence that therapy can help.The idea is that delicate but insistent therapy early in life can help children rewire their brains and possibly reverse the symptoms.
