Parent Training for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Improving the Quality of Life for Children and Their Families.

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present many challenges to their parents. Caring for children with ASD can be expensive, exhausting, and more burdensome than parenting children with other disabilities (Hayes & Watson, 2013). One of the emerging empirically supported interventions available for helping parents and children with ASD is behavioral parent training (PT). PT is a psychotherapeutic intervention that targets parent behavior to change noncompliant and disruptive behavior in the child (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2007). The goal of PT is to transfer knowledge to parents, thus helping them acquire new parenting skills so they can promote and sustain behavioral improvements in children with ASD. PT for children with ASD is a family-based psychotherapy intended to decrease functional impairment and improve the quality of life for affected children and their families.