Pilot Trial of a Peer-to-Peer Psychoeducational Intervention for Parents of Black Children Awaiting a Developmental Evaluation

Abstract

Objective:This study examined the short-term impact on child, family, and parent outcomes of a peer-to-peer psychoeducational intervention, Parents Taking Action (PTA) for Black families of children awaiting developmental-behavioral pediatric evaluations.Methods:We targeted parents and other primary caregivers of Black children aged 8 years or younger awaiting a developmental or autism evaluation at an academic tertiary care hospital. Using a single-arm design, we recruited participants directly from the appointment waitlist and used flyers in local pediatric and subspecialty clinics. Eligible participants received a version of PTA adapted for Black children in two 6-week modules delivered synchronously online. In addition to initial baseline demographic data, we collected 4 standardized measures of parent stress and depression, family outcomes (e.g., advocacy), and child behavior at preintervention, midintervention, and postintervention. We calculated effect sizes and used linear mixed models to examine changes over time.Results:Fifteen participants completed PTA, the majority of whom were Black mothers with annual household incomes <$50,000. All children were Black and mostly boys, with an average age of 4.6 years. Parent depression, the family outcome total score, and 3 family outcomes (understanding child's strengths, needs, and abilities; knowing rights and advocating for child; and helping child develop and learn) significantly improved pre-post intervention, with medium to large effect sizes. Furthermore, the family outcome total score and “knowing rights and advocating for child” outcome significantly increased by midintervention (d = 0.62–0.80).Conclusion:Peer-delivered interventions can result in positive outcomes for families awaiting diagnostic evaluations. Further research is needed to confirm findings.

Waiting-list interventions for children and young people using child and adolescent mental health services: a systematic review

“…A total of 5078 studies were identified, imported into EXCEL and full texts read for relevance (n=93), if not relevant the reason for exclusion was noted (see figure 1), 18 papers were identified as meeting the eligibility criteria. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] The characteristics of the 18 included studies are presented in online supplemental table 2 and online supplemental table A1.…”

Parents’ and service providers’ perspectives of services for autism in the rural region of Northern Arizona.

“…Similarly, parents in this study made it clear that they would benefit from parent support and parent-mediated interventions. Parent training is an accessible method for promoting long-term behavioral improvements among children with autism (Bearss et al, 2015; Dababnah et al, 2023). Care providers within rural communities should consider providing knowledge-focused and technique-focused parent training as a psychotherapeutic intervention in which clinicians teach parents effective skills.…”

“…To combat service access barriers in rural areas, autism diagnostic and treatment services delivered via telehealth may be a viable option (de Nocker & Toolan, 2021; Wagner et al, 2021). Targeted parent training on autism information, tools, and resources may be another way to improve access to services for families in rural areas (Dababnah et al, 2023). Bearss et al (2015) defined a taxonomy for parent training programs in the following two categories: (a) parent support, which is knowledge-focused (i.e., child is an indirect beneficiary) and includes psychoeducation and care coordination, and (2) parent-mediated intervention, which is technique-focused (i.e., child is the direct beneficiary) and includes interventions for core symptoms and maladaptive behaviors.…”