Common elements of parent management training programs for preschool children with autism spectrum disorder

Parent management training is a general set of interventions used as a part of a variety of clinical approaches to reduce behavioral problems of children. These behavioral problems in children with special needs (such as autism spectrum disorder) take a more complex form. The objective is to present elements, needed to develop parent management training program to reduce behavioral problems in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder. At first, all parent management training programs for reducing behavioral problems of preschool children were collected. Subsequently, all programs were reviewed from the perspective of having a systematic review or meta-analysis, confirming the effectiveness of this program at preschool age. After that, interviews with experts and parents were conducted to identify effective elements on development of this program. In the next step, a set of components was obtained using information about parent management training programs as well as items obtained from interviews with experts and parents. At this stage, 10 experts were asked to rate the items according to their importance using the Delphi method. The items that achieved the required scores were introduced as main items. The number of them was 13 and included items such as full assessment of the child and appropriate communication with the child. Considering the characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder will require changes in some parts of parent management training program, therefore, it is necessary to develop a specific program for these children to cover all of their characteristics.