Efficacy of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy With Autism Spectrum Disorder

The aim of the current proposal is to determine if the PCIT treatment manual can be successfully utilized for preschoolers with ASD and disruptive behavior (across a range of intellectual functioning levels) and to evaluate its ability to significantly decrease measures of problem behavior. It is hypothesized that the current manual will require few modifications for use with ASD and that, in comparison to a wait-list control group, families who undergo PCIT training will evidence significant gains on measures of parenting stress, child externalizing behaviors and compliance to parental requests. To address the pilot study aims, we will recruit a total of 25 families of children with ASD (ages 2.6-6.11 years) whose children are already receiving intensive, one-on-one behavioral treatment services (15-30 hours per week) but no structured parent training. Families will be randomized to either intensive services + PCIT or intensive services alone (wait list control). Assessments will be completed at baseline, mid-treatment (9 weeks post baseline), post-treatment (18 weeks after the baseline assessment) and long-term follow-up (12 weeks post-treatment). PCIT families will attend 16 weekly, one-hour coaching sessions. Both active treatment and wait-list control families will continue to receive intensive ABA services in the home or community. Control families will receive PCIT training after 18 weeks on the "wait-list." The aims of the pilot study are: 1. To assess the utility of the current PCIT treatment manual with preschoolers with ASD and disruptive behavior and their parents; Hypothesis 1: The current PCIT treatment manual will be able to be utilized with families of children with ASD with only minimal modifications. Hypothesis 2: Families of children with ASD will consistently attend PCIT sessions. 2. To determine if PCIT with this population will result in an increase in appropriate parent behaviors and a subsequent decrease in targeted child behaviors (e.g., direct assessment of noncompliance, behavior rating scales). Hypothesis 3: Families receiving PCIT training will evidence statistically greater decreases on measures of disruptive behavior, quality of parent-child interactions and parental stress than families on the wait-list control group.