Family intervention and acquisition of adaptive behaviour among intellectually disabled children

Abstract

A trial was designed to evaluate the role of enhanced parental attitude towards management of intellectual disability in the acquisition of adaptive behaviour. Fifty-seven children with intellectual disability and their parents were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of either multimodal adaptive behaviour training plus interactive group psycho-education (intervention group); or multimodal adaptive behaviour training plus didactic lectures (control group). Blinded raters were involved. Completers’ and intention-to-treat analyses were conducted. In the intention-to-treat sample, 22 of 29 children in the intervention group compared with four of 28 children in the control group showed a significant improvement in the acquisition of adaptive behaviour. The minimum additive efficacy provided by the enhanced parental attitude was 80 percent. Meaningful clinical benefits on various measures were found for the intervention group after training. Parental attitude intervention should be included in adaptive behaviour training for children with intellectual disability, as enhanced parental attitude has short-term positive effects.