Improving the family environment, service access, and behavioral adjustment of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has high relevance both for the children and their families as well as for health care and service payors. Family environment is a critical influence on ASD children?s adjustment: Poor parent adjustment increases behavior problems in ASD children, reduces parents? capacity to access and adhere to critical services, and dampens or eliminates the benefits of early intervention. However, due to the stressors of navigating ASD-related and medical services, as well as managing child behavior challenges, parents of children with ASD report low levels of individual and couple adjustment. Parents report high levels of depression and anxiety, and low levels of parental efficacy and couple relationship quality compared to parents of typically developing children. To address the dual needs of parents for support in navigating ASD services and maintaining positive family functioning, we propose to test Autism Parent Navigators (APN), an innovative in-home, peer support model for parents with a young child recently diagnosed with ASD. APN was designed to be feasible and scalable by relying on parent peer mentors to conduct sessions. Extensive pilot work over the past 3 years has generated evidence of feasibility, acceptability, and impact. This pilot work has allowed us to fine-tune the parent mentor training, participant recruitment, delivery, and fidelity monitoring procedures.
Aim 1. To assess the efficacy of APN in a randomized trial with 180 families.
Aim 2. To test the mediating pathways through which APN impacts outcomes: We will test whether impact on proximal targets (ASD-related appraisals; coparenting; parent self-efficacy about accessing services; and peer mentor support) influence parent mental health, parenting, and treatment engagement, and if these in turn influence child outcomes.
Aim 3. To assess whether baseline parent characteristics (financial stress, mental health, relationship conflict), child characteristics, or program processes (fidelity, parent engagement) moderate outcomes.

Public Health Relevance

To address the dual needs of parents for support in navigating Autism Syndrome Disorder (ASD) services and maintaining positive family functioning, we propose to test Autism Parent Navigators (APN), an innovative in-home, peer support model for parents with a young child recently diagnosed with ASD. Extensive pilot work over the past 3 years has generated evidence of feasibility, acceptability, and impact. We will assess the efficacy of APN in a randomized trial with 180 families; test the mediating pathways through which APN impacts outcomes; and assess whether baseline parent characteristics, child characteristics, or program processes moderate outcomes.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01HD099295-01A1
Application #
9968614
Study Section
Psychosocial Development, Risk and Prevention Study Section (PDRP)
Program Officer
Kau, Alice S
Project Start
2020-06-17
Project End
2025-02-28
Budget Start
2020-06-17
Budget End
2021-02-28
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2020
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Pennsylvania State University
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Sch Allied Health Professions
DUNS #
003403953
City
University Park
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
16802