Cultural and Family Factors on Caregiver Involvement in Communication Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Developmental Disability: A Meta-Analytic Review, Systematic Review, and Single-Case Research

Abstract

Caregiver involvement, which means the collaboration between caregivers and professionals, plays an important role in the outcomes of communication skills for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual/developmental disability (IDD). However, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families do not receive sufficient culturally- and linguistically- appropriate support due to language and cultural barriers. The purposes of the present research were (a) to conduct a meta-analytic review determining the effects of caregiver involvement for promoting communication skills of children with ASD and IDD; (b) to summarize the characteristics of single-case studies on caregiver involvement in communication interventions for CLD families of children with ASD and IDD for recommendations on culturally responsive practices; and (c) to conduct a single-case experimental design study evaluating the effects of a culturally responsive parent coaching on multimodal communication protocol for CLD parents of children with ASD. The results of the first article indicated that the overall effect size for family involvement showed a small effect on child communicative outcomes. Also, there were statistically significant differences in child communication outcomes between the different dosage groups. The findings of the second article suggested that caregiver involvement can improve communication behavior in CLD individuals with ASD and IDD; however, there is a need to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate support to CLD caregivers during parent training. Visual and statistical analyses in the third article indicated a functional relation in the effectiveness of the culturally responsive parent coaching, the improvement of communication skills in children with ASD, and high acceptability of culturally responsive parent coaching on the multimodal communication protocol. The findings of this research have implications for cultural and family factors on caregiver involvement in improving communication skills for children with ASD and IDD. Some limitations should be considered, including the inclusion of only single case research, the greater focus on intervention characteristics provided to caregiver characteristics, and the inclusion of limited studies published in Asia for the first/second study. Also. small sample size and the inclusion of only Chinese speaking caregiver participants were two major limitations for the third study. Implications for future research and practice were also addressed.