Clinical trial NCT05238766: Behavioral Interventions to Increase Parent Adherence With Behavior Plans
Official title: Contextual Behavioral Strategies to Help Parents Adhere to Behavior Plans for Children With Autism
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Family Accommodation
Nonadherence
Behavior Problem
Keywords: Family Accommodation
Nonadherence
Lead sponsor: Hugo W. Moser Research Institute at Kennedy Krieger, Inc.
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Organization for Autism Research
First posted: 2022-02-14
Enrollment: 12
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: Many children with autism demonstrate severe problem behavior (SPB) in the form of self-injury, aggression, and disruptive behavior. Conducting a functional analysis and implementing derived treatments can produce effective behavior plans. Nonetheless, skills training and an effective plan may not be sufficient to produce parent adherence. This applied research proposal describes an approach to target the negative maintaining contingencies supporting parent reinforcement of problem behavior (accommodation) and nonadherence. The intervention, borrowed from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Behavioral Activation strategies, is matched specifically to the hypothesized function of the problematic caregiver responses (negative reinforcement). Parents who participate in the proposed investigation will be assigned to either the Defuse Experience Accept Live intervention (DEAL) protocol group or treatment as usual. Five 45-min DEAL sessions will 1) introduce caregivers to behavior change strategies that maximize contact with positive-maintaining contingencies related to adherence, while undermining the contingencies that maintain accommodation, and 2) provide caregivers with new treatment-related committed actions that are sensitive to positive changes in parent-child interactions. Within and between participant analyses will be conducted to determine the effectiveness of the DEAL protocol.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Child under the age of 18 years,
* Child is diagnosed with ASD, as confirmed by the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-3,
* Child problem behavior is socially-maintained as identified via functional analysis,
* Parent is English-speaking, and
* Parent attendance of at least 80% of appointments at entry into the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Child is older than 18 years of age,
* Child does not have ASD,
* Child's problem behavior is not socially-maintained,
* Parent does not speak English, and
* Parent attendance at time of study entry is less than 80%.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Accommodation to Adherence Change Score
timeFrame: Change from Time 1 (Week 1) to Time 2 (Week 7)
measure: Experiential Avoidance
timeFrame: Change from Time 1 (Week 1) to Time 2 (Week 7)
measure: Cognitive Fusion
timeFrame: Change from Time 1 (Week 1) to Time 2 (Week 7)
measure: Parenting Stress
timeFrame: Change from Time 1 (Week 1) to Time 2 (Week 7)
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Baltimore
country: United States
facility: Kennedy Krieger Institute
state: Maryland
city: Columbia
country: United States
facility: Kennedy Krieger Institute
state: Maryland
Study officials:
References: