Multi-family Group Psychoeducation for Young Adults with ASD

针对患有自闭症谱系障碍的年轻人的多家庭团体心理教育

• 批准号: 8755467
• 负责人: Leann Smith DaWalt
• 金额: $ 18.81万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8755467
• 关键词: Acute; Address; Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Autistic Disorder; Behavioral; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.); Child; Childhood; Climate; Communities; Controlled Study; Data; Developmental Disabilities; Diagnosis; Distress; Education; Educational Curriculum; Effectiveness; Emotional Stress; Employment; Exercise; Expressed Emotion; Family; Feedback; Focus Groups; Goals; Grant; Health; Home environment; Hour; Individual; Intellectual functioning disability; Intervention; Intervention Studies; Knowledge; Legal; Life; Measures; Mediating; Mental Health; Modeling; Occupations; Outcome; Parents; Participant; Personal Satisfaction; Problem Solving; Quality of life; Randomized; Recruitment Activity; Reporting; Research; Risk; Role; Sampling; Schools; Services; Severities; Staging; Stress; Suggestion; Symptoms; Testing; Training; Unemployment; United States National Institutes of Health; Ursidae Family; Work; autism spectrum disorder; base; care burden; community setting; coping; disability; falls; high school; improved; intervention effect; meetings; programs; psychoeducation; public health relevance; randomized trial; satisfaction; social; therapy design; young adult

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are developmental disabilities that affect approximately 1 in 88 children in the US (CDC, 2012). Although there is evidence of reduction in severity of symptoms from childhood to adulthood, ASD is a lifelong disability requiring ongoing support. Following high school exit, there is a significant loss of services for young adults with ASD, with many having no meaningful daytime activities. In our previous research, we have found that over 25% of adults with ASD who do not have an intellectual disability (ID) are disengaged from work or post-secondary education (Taylor & Seltzer, 2011). Further, despite a pressing need for research and interventions during this stage of life, there is a paucity of programs for adults with ASD and there are no empirically based interventions designed for their families (Taylor, Dove, et al., 2012). The proposed study addresses this gap and focuses on young adults with ASD who are disengaged from work or post-secondary education. Past research has demonstrated that family psychoeducation programs can reduce high levels of stress and emotional intensity in the family, known as expressed emotion (EE), and that this reduction leads to better outcomes for individuals with mental health conditions (McFarlane, Dixon, Lukens, & Lucksted, 2003). Our preliminary experimental work has shown similar benefits of psychoeducation for adolescents with ASD and their families, with evidence that parent and adolescent mental health and adaptive outcomes can be optimized during the transition out of high school. Based on our previously-developed psychoeducation model with adolescents with ASD, we propose to (1) develop a new psychoeducation intervention entitled Working Together, for use with disengaged young adults with ASD (without ID) and their families, and (2) conduct a randomized waitlist control study of the effect of this intervention in a community sample. We will conduct focus groups to adapt and develop the curriculum and pilot the curriculum with 7 families to determine feasibility and acceptability. Next, 56 families of disengaged young adults with ASD (defined as working/in school < 10 hours per week) who live at home will be recruited to participate in the intervention and randomly assigned to either the intervention or a waitlist control condition. The Working Together intervention will involve 2 individual-family joining sessions, 8 weekly group sessions, and 3 booster sessions for adults and their parents (who meet separately). Mediating (family capacity, family climate) and outcome variables (engagement in adult roles, adult behavioral functioning,) will be measured at baseline and at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. We hypothesize that families randomized into the initial intervention condition will show greater improvements in adult role engagement, adult behavioral functioning, and family capacity and greater decreases in EE (a measure of family climate) compared to families in the waitlist control condition.

描述（由申请人提供）：自闭症谱系障碍（asd）是一种发育障碍，在美国大约每88名儿童中就有1名受到影响（CDC, 2012）。虽然有证据表明从儿童期到成年期症状的严重程度有所降低，但ASD是一种需要持续支持的终身残疾。高中毕业后，对患有自闭症谱系障碍的年轻人的服务严重缺失，许多人白天没有任何有意义的活动。在我们之前的研究中，我们发现超过25%的ASD成年人没有智力障碍（ID），他们没有工作或中学后的教育（Taylor & Seltzer, 2011）。此外，尽管迫切需要在生命的这一阶段进行研究和干预，但针对成年自闭症患者的项目很少，也没有经验