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Parents and primary caregivers provide a key source of linguistic input early in the developmental process. The Milton and Ethel Harris Research Initiative Treatment (MEHRIT) is a developmental social pragmatic intervention that provides parents with training on supporting their child’s communication development. This study investigated whether MEHRIT training was associated with changes in parent language use following treatment. Preschool-aged children with ASD and their parents participated in a randomized controlled trial. Fifteen minute parent-child interactions were videotaped pre-treatment and post-treatment, twelve months apart, and each parent utterance was assigned a code indicating its main function. Parents in the MEHRIT group outperformed the control group post-treatment in the use of skills taught by MEHRIT, using significantly more commenting and significantly fewer metalinguistic questions. Results of this study offer support for parent-implemented therapies, suggesting that parents have the potential to apply strategies obtained from coaching in the facilitation of communication with their children.
This research was funded by: Harris Steel Foundation, Unicorn Foundation, Cure Autism Now, Public Health Agency of Canada, and Templeton Foundation |
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