Thursday, May 20, 2010
Franklin Hall B Level 4 (Philadelphia Marriott Downtown)
9:00 AM
L. M. Silva
,
The Teaching Research Institute, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR
M. Schalock
,
Teaching Research Institute, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR
K. R. Gabrielsen
,
The Teaching Research Institute, Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR
Background: A recent randomized controlled trial of a Chinese massage intervention for pre-school children with autism showed significant improvement of behavioral and social/language measures of autism in treated children, as well as improvement in sensory impairment and self-regulation at five months of treatment. The intervention involved dual delivery of a simple version of the massage to children by trained parents on a daily basis, as well as a skilled version by trained Early Intervention (EI) staff. The EI staff component of the intervention was ten hours - delivered in twenty treatments over five months - more than the usually allotment of service time for local programs in Oregon. Given the current situation of shrinking budgets for autism services, the research team was asked to develop a parent-delivered massage program that would require less staff time and no direct treatment from staff.
Objectives: To determine whether a parent-delivered Qigong massage program would be effective in improving behavioral and social/language measures of autism, reducing impairment of sensory and self-regulation, and reducing measures of parent stress relative to caring for the child.
Methods: 39 children were randomly assigned to treatment and wait-list control conditions. Parents delivering the massage treatment received a three-hour group training followed by seven, weekly, half-hour support sessions from trained EI staff. Parents gave the massage daily for a four month duration. Pre and post testing was done with the Autism Behavior Checklist, the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Behavioral Inventory, the Sense and Self-regulation checklist and the Parent Stress Index.
Results: Treated children had significant improvement in measures of autism (p,.01) and sensory-regulation impairment (p<.001), and parent stress (p<.001) compared to wait-list controls. Effect sizes were in the large range.
Conclusions: A parent-directed Chinese massage intervention for pre-school children was effective in reducing the severity of measures of autism, sensory regulation impairment, and parent stress relative to caring for their child.
