Examining the Effectiveness of a Parent Manual: Improving Learned Social Skills in Rural Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The purpose of this study was to address the need for greater access to social skills training and to reduce barriers encountered by rural families of children with ASD. This study pilot-tested a parent manual designed to augment an existing social skills curriculum. The manual provided ASD psychoeducation and specific techniques parents utilized in the home to facilitate maintenance and generalization of skills their children were learning in a social skills treatment condition. Six families of children with ASD participated in this 7-week study. Two families agreed to be in a treatment as usual comparison condition. The results from the analyses showed that parents adhered to and were satisfied with the manual. Further, analyses showed that all treatment condition participants made clinically significant improvements in at least one dimension of interpersonal behavior, communication, or stereotypical/repetitive behaviors, as reported by parents.