The Impact of Parent Training on Access to Care for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that impacts communication and behavior. Parents of children with ASD have the difficult challenge to identify appropriate treatment to address their children’s needs. There are unproven treatments that appeal to parents that can cause harm. Parents need targeted educational opportunities in evidence-based interventions such as Applied Behavior Analysis to foster positive outcomes for their children. The purpose of this study was to determine baseline parental knowledge of evidence-based intervention for children with ASD and if specialized parent training increased parental knowledge of ASD interventions, and to determine socioeconomic status was a factor affecting access to treatment for ASD services. It was hypothesized that targeted parent training would increase parental knowledge of ASD interventions, and that families with lower SES experience more barriers to treatment than their higher SES counterparts. This study used a quasi-experimental design using a pre-test and post-test, and a demographic survey. Results indicated that parent training did increase parent knowledge of ASD interventions. This study did not find that SES impacted access to treatment. This study was limited in scope primarily due to the small sample size. However, parent training can improve outcomes for children on the autism spectrum. Keywords: Parent Training, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Socioeconomic status, Applied Behavior Analysi