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Parent Reports of Treatments and Interventions Used With Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Review of the Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2014

Sarah Carlon ,
Jennifer Stephenson  and
Mark Carter
Sarah Carlon*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University Special Education Centre, Macquarie University, Australia
Jennifer Stephenson
Affiliation:
Macquarie University Special Education Centre, Macquarie University, Australia
Mark Carter
Affiliation:
Macquarie University Special Education Centre, Macquarie University, Australia
*
Correspondence: Sarah Carlon, Macquarie University Special Education Centre, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

With the increasing number of treatment and intervention options for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in recent years, the number and types of interventions that parents are choosing to use has become of interest. In the present paper, the authors review 41 articles (describing 42 studies) presenting quantitative data on intervention choices of parents of children with ASD. Speech therapy was the most commonly reported intervention for both current and lifetime use. Across the studies, parents were reported to be using a variety of interventions, from those with strong empirical support, such as applied behaviour analysis (ABA), to others that lacked such support, such as dietary interventions. Some differences in the data presented across studies may be attributed to the range of different methodologies used to collect the data. Recommendations for future research, including those related to collecting treatment usage data more consistently, are discussed.

Keywords

ASDautisminterventionstreatmentsparent reportreview
Type
Literature Review
Information
Australasian Journal of Special Education , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , July 2014 , pp. 63 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014 

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