A Preliminary Evaluation of a Brief Behavioral Parent Training for Challenging Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Only 9 families were in the comparison group, and the uneven split was chosen in the expectation that the training would win. The study cannot show the comparison programme was worse than the training. The clinician who produced the one positive result was given every caregiver questionnaire score before making the rating, so that rating is not independent of how the families rated themselves. Apart from that rating, everything came from caregivers filling in questionnaires. No one watched the children's behaviour directly. Parenting stress was higher in the training group at the start (p = .028), the only baseline difference between the groups. All families came from one clinic in Syracuse, New York, 35 of the 38 caregivers were Caucasian, and 33 of the 38 children were boys, so the results may not carry to other families. Child behaviour and parenting stress moved back towards where they started between the end of treatment and the six-month follow-up. Homework was discussed each week but never recorded, so how much practice caregivers actually did at home is unknown. Sessions used video examples but no role-play. The children's developmental level or IQ was not measured, and the report's two tables give different numbers for the training group (28 and 29).

The study was funded by the Nappi Family Collaborative Group Grant. No other funder is named, and the text supplied contains no author disclosure statement.

Do not take the clinician rating as proof that the training beats the comparison programme. That rating was made by an evaluator who was given every caregiver questionnaire score before deciding, and on those questionnaires the two groups improved by similar amounts.