Parent Training in Groups: Pilot Study with Parents of Infants with Developmental Delay

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative 8-week parent-child interaction skills training group for parents of infants with developmental delay. We developed the "Skill Building Group" within an attachment theory framework. Parents actively learned skills in sensitive responding to infant cues through small and large group discussion of video segments of common parenting challenges, homework assignments, and peer support. We conducted a pilot study comparing 12 participants and 5 controls on several self-report pre-test/post-test measures. Results for the intervention group indicated decreases in dysfunctional parent-child interaction, parental distress, sadnessldepression, and follow-up service utilization, and high levels of consumer satisfaction. For the comparison group, pre-post differences were not significant.