Parents plus programme I: evaluation of its effectiveness for pre-school children with developmental disabilities and behavioural problems

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Parents Plus programme with families of pre-school children with developmental disabilities and significant behavioural problems in the Irish health service. The Parents Plus programme is a group-based parent training package involving video modelling, which was designed to be effective for children with conduct problems, but without developmental disabilities. Materials and Methods: Pre- and post-treatment assessments were conducted with 22 treated cases and 19 waiting-list controls with a protocol that included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, the Child Behaviour Checklist, the General Health Questionnaire-12, the Kansas Parental Satisfaction Scale, the Family Assessment Device, the Perceived Social Support Scale, the Family Inventory of Life Events and Changes, the Parenting Stress Index and the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress. Results: Following the treatment, a comparison of treatment and control group means showed that the treated group showed better adjustment on the total difficulties scale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. These gains were maintained at 10-month follow-up. Fifty per cent of treated cases showed clinically significant improvement and 14% showed reliable change on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The treatment group reported a high level of satisfaction with the Parents Plus programme and showed significant goal attainment after treatment and at follow-up. Conclusions: For some families of pre-school children with developmental disabilities and significant behavioural problems, the Parents Plus programme is an effective intervention and may be incorporated into routine early intervention clinics in the Irish health service..