Parent education programs for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders.
The importance of parent education for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders is quite obvious as parents are the most stable and long lasting support for most children and youths with autism spectrum disorders. And the potential benefits of such programs have been demonstrated for decades. But the parent education programs has been very different on approaches and procedures.
I this issue of Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities Schultz, Schmidt and Stichter has published a review of parent education programs for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders. In this reveiw that have included 30 published reserach articles.
The results of this review shows that a variety of skills and ages has been targeted. Some of the programs have a defined curriculum or manual, but none of the programs report on fidelity measures. The review also reveals that most programs use a one-on-one approach, which may not be as cost-effective as group approaches. Taken as a whole this review emphasis the importance and benefits of parent education programs, but leave many questions on how this should be designed and implemented that needs to be addressed in further research.