Parent-Mediated Interventions for Social Communication in Young Children with ASD

Abstract

There are many different ways to involve parents in the education of their child. Parent-mediated intervention is a specific form of parent involvement that provides systematic training in intervention strategies to help a parent accomplish specific goals or outcomes for their child. Parent-mediated intervention is used in the treatment of a variety of childhood disorders and is typically focused on helping parents manage their child’s behavior, improve the parent-child relationship, and increase specific developmental skills in the child. Parent-mediated intervention can be used in combination with direct intervention, but it can also be considered a primary intervention strategy in its own right, particularly in the treatment of very young children. In this chapter, we will focus on parent-mediated interventions that target the development of social communication skills for young children with autism spectrum disorder. We begin by exploring the rationale for the use of parent-mediated intervention in the treatment of social communication deficits for young children with autism spectrum disorder. Next, we summarize the research on current parent-mediated social communication interventions and provide guidelines for researchers and practitioners in evaluating these interventions. Finally, we describe future directions for the field.