Investigation of the effect of Hanen's “More Than Words” on parental self-efficacy, emotional states, perceived social support, and on communication skills of children with ASD

Abstract

Background

Parents’ emotional states, self-efficacy, and perceived social support levels are crucial elements to consider when planning treatments for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). High levels of parental stress, depression, anxiety and low levels of parental efficacy and social support may disrupt the role of parent involvement in early intervention programs. In this study, Hanen’s “More Than Words” (HMTW) intervention was provided to a group of parents with children who had been diagnosed early with ASD.

Method

Fourteen parents and their children with ASD (four girls and ten boys) were enrolled in the study. The primary impact of the HMTW intervention on parents’ emotional states, self-efficacy, interactional behaviors, and perceived social support levels and its secondary effect on children’s communication development was investigated in five different time intervals and in three different conditions (pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up).

Results

The results indicated that the rate of change in the levels of parents’ self-efficacy, state of anxiety, parental stress, parental interactional behaviors, and childrens’ verbal language performances and interactional behaviors was statistically different in the post-intervention period when compared with the pre-intervention period (p < .05).

Conclusions

The HMTW intervention did not only have a positive effect on parents, but also on children with ASD in this study.

What this paper adds

This research was an extension of the previous “Hanen’s More Than Words” efficacy studies to examine the program’s primary effect on parents’ emotional states, self-efficacy, interactional behaviors, and perceived social support levels and its secondary effect on children’s interactional behavior and language development. The findings of the study confirm that the program has the potential to increase parents’ sense of efficacy and the quality of parent–child interactions. The main conclusion is that parents, as the main caregivers, should be involved in the treatment of their young children with ASD.

Keywords:

• Autism spectrum disorder
• Hanen’s “More Than Words”
• language development
• early intervention
• parent-implemented intervention
• parental self-efficacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

In this study, all procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the Declaration of Helsinki, as revised in 2000 and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor change. This change do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ayşın Noyan Erbaş

Ayşın Noyan Erbaş is a research assistant and a pediatric SLP at Hacettepe University. Her main areas of research interest are developmental language disorders and autism spectrum disorders.

Esra Özcebe

Esra Özcebe is Professor of Speech and Language Therapy at Hacettepe University. She has several national and international publications in the field of language and speech disorders.

Tuna Cak Esen

Tuna Cak Esen is a child psychiatrist who is mainly interested in neurodevelopmental disorders and early childhood psychopathology.