PALACES
Research type
Research Study
Full title
PALACES - Parenting for Autism, Language, And Communication Evaluation Study
IRAS ID
208424
Contact name
Judy Hutchings
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Bangor University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Parents of children with a diagnosis of Autism and/or related difficulties face challenges in supporting their children and frequently report behavioural difficulties associated with sleep, eating and other daily activities. These are affected by the dual challenges of communication difficulties and resistance to change. This project evaluates a newly developed Incredible Years (IY) programme for parents of young children with a diagnosis, or strongly suspected diagnosis, of autism. The new programme presents video footage of children with autism and uses all of the same key components that have been found to be effective in other IY parenting programmes, discussion, role-play practice and homework assignments. This new programme was recently trialled in Wales with parents of children with or awaiting a diagnosis of Autism and was enthusiastically received (Hutchings et al., 2016).
The proposed project is a pilot randomised controlled trial of the new programme in NHS settings in North and Mid-Wales. Parents of children aged 3 – 8 years will be recruited in four NHS settings. A series of baseline measures will be collected including questionnaires on family demographics, child autism symptoms and behavioural problems, parental mental health and parenting style and direct observation of child behaviour and parenting. Once recruited, parent-child pairs will be randomly allocated to an intervention group or a wait list control group. To address key ethical issues, control group families will be offered the intervention after the six month follow-up data has been collected. Intervention families will also be followed up at 12-months and 18-months.
The evaluation will test a range of feasibility questions and provide initial evidence about the effectiveness of the intervention to inform a potential definitive trial proposal to a suitable NIHR funding scheme.REC name
Wales REC 5
REC reference
16/WA/0224
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion