Browsing by Author "Wanniachchi, P.M."

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    Effect of a play-based training program on interactive skills of caregivers of children with autism
    (Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2021) Wanniachchi, P.M.; Sumanasena, S.
    Introduction: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have impairments in social communication and interaction skills and show restricted repetitive behaviours. Evidence shows that early detection and parent mediated intervention programs lead to better social communication and functional outcomes highlighting parents as the most natural human resource. Objectives: To evaluate caregiver acquisition of interaction skills to engage with children aged 2-4 years with ASD during play following a parent training protocol and to describe associated socio-demographic factors Methods: Thirty (30) caregivers of newly diagnosed children aged 24-48 months, attending a multidisciplinary clinic were recruited. A mixed method research including pre¬post interventional study determined the acquisition of interactive skills following a 2 hour play based training program. Adapted Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers (Q-CCIIT); checklist assessed pre-post caregiver-child interactions by 10- minutes video recordings of each child two weeks following the training. A questionnaire collected socio-demographic data. Data was analysed using nonparametric tests by SPSS software. Results: QCCITT percentage of mean scores improved significantly in all 30 caregivers (p<0.005) for all three areas assessed; support for social emotional development as an average 8.80 to 22.83, cognitive development 4.63 to 14.13 and language development 6.97 to 12.97. Age and education level of parents positively influenced the skills (p< 0.05). Conclusions: There was a significant improvement of caregiver interaction skills. Social emotional skills improvement was also significant.
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    A short report on a preliminary interventional study to evaluate play-mediated interaction skills in caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder from Sri Lanka
    (Sage Publishing, 2024) Wanniachchi, P.M.; Sumanasena, S.P.
    Most children with autism spectrum disorder live in low- and middle-income countries. Most of them do not have access to timely and culturally acceptable interventions. Research from high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries, such as Sri Lanka, show that parent-mediated intervention programmes improve functional outcomes, highlighting the importance of parents as partners. We undertook a preliminary study to evaluate how play-based parent coaching will enhance the parent interaction skills to promote social-emotional, cognitive and language skills in children with autism spectrum disorder aged 2-4 years. We evaluated how parents acquire interaction skills to engage with children using a caregiver skills assessment checklist adapted from freely accessible resources. Before and after training, all parent-child dyads participated in a 10-min video-recorded play session with a set of toys of their choice. Over the course of 2 weeks, all parents spent 2 h/day playing and interacting with the child to harness the desired skills. The results showed that the parental training had a positive effect on all 30 caregivers in gaining skills, with a significant improvement in all three domains with the highest impact on skills for social-emotional development. Overall, parents reported high levels of satisfaction on the training. The significant improvement in parent interaction skills was promising. However, further studies to look at the sustainability of the skills and the impact on children's overall development need to be looked into using larger and more generalised studies.