The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

While “parent involvement” is considered a critical component of intervention for children with autism, parents’ emotional experiences are often not addressed. In this presentation, a Parent Coaching model will be described that addresses the multiple needs of parents through the use of professionals trained in autism, family systems, and mental health. This presentation will discuss the emotional needs of parents, details about the coaching program, and suggestions for developing similar programs as stand-alone interventions or components of larger autism programs. For many years, parent involvement has been indicated as a critical component of early intervention for children with ASD. However, in many programs for children with autism, “parent involvement” only consists of participating in their child's education, such as by defining the child's goals or filling out satisfaction surveys, or through offering informal support, such as encouraging the attendance of support groups or providing brief parent-teacher meetings. Some programs offer parent training programs, in which parents are taught effective strategies for supporting their child's education and generalizing their skills. However, few parent support programs address the emotional needs of the parent, despite the evidence suggesting that parents of children with autism often experience high levels of stress, lower marital satisfaction, and are at-risk for depression. In this presentation, a model will be discussed that attempts to address the multiple needs of parents through the use of individual Parent Coaches, trained in autism, family systems, and mental health, who meet individually with parents. This presentation will highlight the importance of addressing the multiple needs of these parents, specific details about the program, as well how similar models can be developed, either as stand-alone interventions or components of larger autism programs.

Due to the difficult nature of parenting a child diagnosed with autism, multiple facets of parents' lives may be affected. Parents of children with autism tend to experience high levels of parenting-related stress, significantly higher stress than parents of children of typical-developing children and parents of children with other disabilities. This stress increases their susceptibility to emotional and physical difficulties and can affect the entire overall functioning of their family system. High levels of stress contributes to a person's overall risk for mental health-related issues and maladaptive coping strategies, which can lead parents to physically or emotionally distance themselves from their families. In connection with parent distancing, the marital relationship is also often affected for parents with a child with autism and the rate of divorce has been shown to be higher for parents of children with autism.

Despite the potential for a significant impact on their life experience, parents may be wary of seeking out professional support for themselves. Parents are often so consumed with finding interventions for their child with autism, that there is little energy available for providing for themselves. In addition, feelings of guilt may arise if parents are seeking out professional support, since they may believe this takes time away from providing for their child or other family members. Finally, a lack of financial resources may prevent support services from being sought after, since families often spend much of their earnings on services for their child with autism.

The Parent Coaching model in the Starting Right program at Mailman Segal Institute is designed to meet multiple needs of a parent with a child with autism. The Starting Right program is an early intervention program for children under three years of age identified either with an autistic spectrum disorder or speech/language delay. In the Parent Coaching model, each set of parents is paired with an individual trained in addressing multiple needs of a parent with a child with autism, including understanding the emotional impact on themselves and other family members and developing adaptive coping strategies, psychoeducation about the autism diagnosis and the educational process, and developing effective parenting strategies for their children with autism. Coaches for this program are either postdoctoral residents in psychology or graduate students in the psychology/counseling field. Coaches meet with their assigned parents every other week, for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour, during a time when their child is occupied with the classroom teacher and parents are not expected to participate in the class. The coaching sessions are parent-led, as they determine their goals and what topics will be covered. Coaches also are available, as needed, to provide in-vivo training in the classroom on using behavioral strategies effectively in order to support these topics if discussed during the coaching sessions. Pre-assessment measures are used to determine parents' areas of interest in the coaching sessions, their stress levels, and how well their family is coping. These assessments are valuable tools to the clinician as well as the parents, since it offers an understanding of how they are adjusting as well as their current needs. In addition, it provides an indication to the parents that these issues can be addressed during the coaching sessions.

Given our understanding of the emotional impact of a diagnosis of autism, this presentation offers a model for parents to address these issues. By providing parents with an opportunity to explore the emotional impact of having a child with autism, it gives parents permission to open up in a way that is not typically offered by the team of autism professionals with whom they work. In addition, it provides counseling to parents in a supportive fashion, taking into account their need to provide for their child and the potential difficulty in discussing their own emotional needs. The fact that the sessions are parent-led is critical, since it allows parents to explore their own emotions in a way that is more comfortable. Support is offered through counseling, developing parenting skills, and psychoeducation, because the needs of the parent of a child with autism will vary and may change from session to session. By offering multidimensional support to parents in an environment that understands the needs of a parent of a child with autism, the negative impact resulting from the difficulties in parenting a child with autism might be lessened and the capacity for the family system to adjust in a healthy manner will increase.

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