Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Children with Developmental Delay: The Role of Sleep Problems.

The sample was small, 44 children, and the authors call the results preliminary. This was a secondary analysis of two trials that had different screening criteria, one focused on intellectual disability and oppositional defiant disorder and the other on preterm children with developmental delay or borderline developmental delay. The intervention did not directly target sleep problems, so the sleep improvement may reflect generalization from parenting skills rather than a tested sleep treatment. Sleep and behavior outcomes were based mainly on mother report, and the CBCL sleep subscale is not a comprehensive sleep assessment. There was no follow-up assessment, so it is unclear whether the sleep improvement lasted. Ten families dropped out, and dropout differed by maternal race, with biracial and African American mothers dropping out more than White mothers. The sample was predominantly middle-class and White, so results may not generalize to families from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. The moderation finding for compliance was significant, but the moderation finding for parent-reported behavior problems was not, and the authors note the sample may have been too small to detect that effect.

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Do not conclude that PCIT is a direct treatment for sleep problems in children with developmental delay. Sleep routines were not targeted, and this was a secondary analysis of two small trials with no follow-up.