Study Shows Improvements in Parents’ Ability to Manage Challenging Conduct
Not everything associated with the coronavirus pandemic and autism has turned out to have a negative consequence. A good example of this phenomenon is a Rutgers University study recently published in The Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis. The study showed that telehealth sessions, used out of necessity during the pandemic, have successfully trained parents of children with autism to effectively manage their children’s challenging behaviors. Many of these parents would not have had the time or ability to access these virtual training sessions had it not been for stay-at-home orders. The Rutger’s study design was simple. The authors recruited 25 parents who had no experience using applied behavioral analysis (ABA) with their children. Thirteen parents were assigned to the treatment group which received virtual ABA training. Twelve parents were in a control group that did not have access to the training but continued with behavioral programs they were currently using. At the end of the study, trained observers viewed videos of both cohorts with their children before and after the virtual training sessions took place. The observers found that parents in the treatment group showed significant improvements in interacting with their children and with their ability to manage their children’s behaviors compared to the non-treatment group. These results encouraged the Rutgers researchers whose aim is to improve the daily life of families with children with autism.
