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Parents’ experiences of participating in PEERS : a social skills intervention for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

University of British Columbia

As many as 26 to 76% of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) live isolated and restricted lives (Cederlund et al., 2008). This outcome is often attributed to impaired social skills that interfere with quality of life, employment, and the ability to develop and maintain relationships. Effective social skills interventions are critical for addressing challenges and negative outcomes associated with impaired social skill development in individuals with ASD. The literature on social skills interventions highlights positive intervention outcomes for adolescents with ASD, but few studies have asked parents about their experiences in parent mediated social skills interventions (Karst et al., 2015). This research was conducted to gain an understanding of the barriers and facilitators of parent’s experiences of participating in and implementing the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relationship Skills (PEERS), a parent-mediated social skills intervention for adolescents with ASD. Six parents of adolescents diagnosed with ASD were interviewed and asked to identify and describe experiences that helped them or hindered them and experiences that they still desired or wished for (i.e., Wishlist items). Interview transcripts were analyzed using the Enhanced Critical Incident Technique (ECIT; Butterfield et al., 2009). Critical Incidents extracted from transcripts and categories that were developed during the analysis were subjected to rigorous reliability and validity checks, including analysis by another researcher, inter-rater agreement, and participant feedback. From the interview transcripts, 155 Critical Incidents (CIs) were generated, including 63 Helpful CIs, 39 Hindering CIs, and 53 Wishlist items. Critical incidents were organized into six emergent categories: Language and communication, Content, Connection to Others, Confidence, Continuity and Enhancements. These findings are reflective of literature on parents’ perspectives of support needed for raising a child with autism and their wants for social competence programs. Finally, practical implications, study contributions, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Text

2020-10-24

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/76360

School and Applied Child Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/