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Pathways Early ASD Intervention as a Moderator of Parenting Stress on Parenting Behaviors: A Randomized Control Trial

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Abstract

We examined the relationship between initial parenting stress and change in parental responsivity for 56 culturally and socioeconomically diverse families in a 12 week randomized control trial of Pathways Early ASD Intervention. Families were randomized into the Pathways (n = 32) or treatment-as-usual (TAU n = 24) group. Overall, Pathways parents experienced decreased stress, while TAU parents experienced an increase. The relationship between initial parental stress and change in parent responsivity was moderated by group membership. Pathways parents became more responsive but responsivity was not influenced by initial parental stress. In contrast, responsivity was negatively affected by initial parenting stress in the TAU group. Results are discussed in terms of components of a parent-mediated ASD intervention that may reduce parental stress.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Autism Grants Program. This project has received IRB approval (IRB 16-81) from the University of Texas at Dallas. A version of this manuscript where presented as a Poster session presented at the American Speech and Hearing Association Convention in 2018. The authors would like to thank the children and families who participated in this study, the interventionists, and the graduate students who assisted with coding the data.

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Author notes

  1. Sereena John

    Present address: Grand Prairie Independent School District, Grand Prairie, TX, USA

  2. Alexandria Jones

    Present address: Department of Structural and Cellular Biology at Tulane School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Callier Center for Communication Disorders, University of Texas at Dallas, 1966 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX, 75235, USA

    Pamela Rosenthal Rollins, Sereena John & Adrienne De Froy

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Contributions

PRR helped to conceive of the study, led in the design of the study, supervised data collection, led in the analyses and interpretation of the data, revised the manuscript, and addressed the reviewer’s comments. SJ helped to conceive of the study, developed the parental responsivity coding, led the data reduction procedures for the parent responsivity measures and assisted with manuscript development. AJ helped to conceive of the study, performed statistical analyses and assisted with manuscript development. AF assisted with statistical analyses and participated in revising the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Pamela Rosenthal Rollins.

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Conflict of interest

Rollins has received research grants from Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Autism Grant Program and has received a speaker honorarium from Texas Autism Research and Resource Center and from the University of Louisiana, John, Jones and De Froy have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Appendix A

Appendix A

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Table 7 Parent fidelity rating
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Rollins, P.R., John, S., Jones, A. et al. Pathways Early ASD Intervention as a Moderator of Parenting Stress on Parenting Behaviors: A Randomized Control Trial. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 4280–4293 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04144-4

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