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Documenting and Understanding Parent’s Intervention Choices for Their Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder

  • S.I. : Parenting Children with ASD
  • Published:
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Abstract

Understanding why parents choose some interventions but not others for their child with autism is important for a number of reasons. Estimating the proportion of evidence-based interventions engaged, identifying the agencies influencing parental decisions, and elucidating the barriers or reasons leading to intervention rejection or discontinuation can result in better service provision. New Zealand parents (n = 570) of a child with autism reported what interventions were being engaged, and why some interventions were engaged but not others. Funding was a major determinant of intervention engagement, while medical professionals exerted the most influence. Sources of support were not related to intervention engagement, but parental perceptions of their child’s symptom severity were. Finally, non-engagement does not necessarily reflect parental opposition to an intervention, but rather the existence of barriers.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the participants for generously giving up their time to respond to this survey. We also thank Autism New Zealand for supporting the recruitment of participants, and for their ‘consumer perspective’ review of early drafts of the survey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health and Psychosocial Studies, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Daniel Shepherd, Rita Csako, Jason Landon, Sonja Goedeke & Kelly Ty

  2. Department of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Daniel Shepherd, Rita Csako, Jason Landon, Sonja Goedeke & Kelly Ty

Authors
  1. Daniel Shepherd
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  2. Rita Csako
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  3. Jason Landon
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  4. Sonja Goedeke
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  5. Kelly Ty
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Contributions

DS, JL and SG conceptualized the study. RC and KT dsigned the study and collected the data. DS drafted the manuscript carried out the analyses. All authors reviewed the manuscript critically, and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Daniel Shepherd.

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Shepherd, D., Csako, R., Landon, J. et al. Documenting and Understanding Parent’s Intervention Choices for Their Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 988–1001 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3395-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3395-7

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