Feasibility Study on Parents Skill Training Program for Reducing Parental Distress and Disruptive Behavior of Their Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) usually exhibt problematic behavioral issues such as hitting, non-compliance, tantrums, spitting, headbanging and aggression, this not only cause distress for the child but also has a significant effect on the mental health of the parents. In Pakistan, the rise in ASD children, lack of resources, non-advocacy, and limited knowledge amongst health professionals have created an alarming situation not only psychologically but also because of the economic burden. The current study is to assess the impact of a psychoeducation and parental skills training programme for reducing the parental psychological stress and disruptive behavior of their children with Autism. This is a 24 weeks parent education and behavioural management manualized programme based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. The plan will include skills training on replacing problematic behaviours with more appropriate behaviours, improving social communication in verbal and non-verbal children, and interactions with peers and others. The parents will be trained on the manualized training programme in groups or as individual sessions using modelling, role-plays and rehearsal as training methods. A total of 60 parents of ASD children, age ranges from 3 to 9 years with disruptive behaviour will be recruited. The diagnosed ASD children screened from the standardised instruments not later than six months and scored \> 15 on the subscale Irritability of Aberrant Behaviour Checklist will be randomly divided into two groups, 1) parents receiving manualized training program 2) parents receiving education sessions. The baseline will be determined baseline by using parent-rated instruments for behavioural problems using the Aberrant Behaviour Checklist, Home Situation Questionnaire, Vineland Adaptive behaviour scales, Symptom Checklist 90, and Parental Distress Index. Overall there will be 12 core sessions on the Parental Education (PE) pertaining to parent ed