Effectiveness of a Time-limited Parent Training Program via Telehealth for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Externalizing Behavior.

Researchers tested a shorter online parent training program for families with autistic children who have challenging behaviors. While children's behavior didn't improve significantly, parents reported less stress in their relationship with their child. Half the families saw meaningful improvement overall. Parents attended sessions regularly, completed homework, and were satisfied with the program. This suggests online parent training could be a helpful option for families.

This study evaluated a shortened, telehealth version of the RUBI parent training program for families with children with autism spectrum disorder and challenging behaviors. Twenty-six parents began treatment with 18 completing at least 6 sessions. While child behavior measures (ABC-2) showed no significant improvement, parents experienced significant reductions in parenting stress, particularly in parent-child interactions. Half of completers showed clinically meaningful improvement on global measures.

The program demonstrated high feasibility with good therapist fidelity, attendance, homework completion, and parent satisfaction. Results support the potential of brief, flexible telehealth interventions for autism families in community settings.

Brief telehealth parent training may reduce parenting stress but may not significantly impact child behavior. High acceptability suggests telehealth delivery is viable for autism families. Further research needed with larger samples and control groups to establish effectiveness.

Small sample size (26 started, 18 completed) limits generalizability. No control group for comparison. Mixed results with improvements in parenting stress but not child behavior. Study type not specified, suggesting potential methodological limitations.

The Research Units in Behavioral Intervention (RUBI) Autism Network Parent Training Program is an effective behavioral parent training program for reducing child externalizing behavior and parenting stress in families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study examined the effectiveness, feasibility, and acceptability of a time-limited (i.e., 6-10 sessions), telehealth delivered, and community-based adaptation of the RUBI program for families of children with suspected or diagnosed ASD. Twenty-six parents started treatment, and 18 were considered treatment completers (i.e., completed a minimum of 6 sessions). To assess effectiveness, the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-4-SF), and Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (CGI-I) were used.

Feasibility was evaluated through therapist fidelity, Therapist-Reported Parent Objectives, session attendance, and homework completion. Parent satisfaction was measured via a post-treatment questionnaire. No significant differences were found from pretreatment to post-treatment on the ABC-2; however, there were significant reductions in the PSI-4-SF Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction subscale ( p < 0.05) along with reductions in the PSI-4-SF Total Stress score ( p < 0.05). Half of the treatment completers showed clinically significant improvement on the CGI-I.

Overall, there were high therapist treatment fidelity, parent completed objectives, attendance, and homework completion. Furthermore, there were high approval ratings across several satisfaction categories. Results provide support for the continued research and use of brief, flexible, telehealth intervention formats in community settings for children suspected of or diagnosed with ASD diagnosis and their families.