ABSTRACT
It is critical that clinicians are informed about and trained in proven, research-driven, family-based treatments to ensure children and their families are receiving optimal care. As ASD impacts both the child and his/her family, providing parents with specific techniques to manage behavior across settings is critical in the treatment approach. Parent-child interaction therapy is a family-based model originally developed to reduce challenging behaviors while improving caregiver-child relationships for children without ASD. However, accumulating research has shown parent-child interaction therapy, without major adaptation and while maintaining its core components, produces comparable outcomes with children on the autism spectrum by ameliorating behavioral challenges and reducing caregiver stress. This chapter provides a clinical and research overview of parent-child interaction therapy, a theoretical rationale outlining the utility of the treatment with the ASD population, and examples of clinical modifications of the model tailored for the ASD population and their families.
