AutInsight: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) of a Consumer-Informed Parent Support Program for Parents of Autistic Children
File version
Version of Record (VoR)
Author(s)
Whittingham, Koa
Mitchell, Amy E
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
Size
File type(s)
Location
Abstract
AutInsight is an innovative, consumer-informed parent support program for parents of autistic children grounded in perspectives from qualitative research with autistic adults. The current study outlines the development and evaluation of AutInsight through a pilot randomised controlled trial. Parents (N = 41) of autistic children (10 years and younger) were randomly allocated to AutInsight (n = 20) or care-as-usual (n = 21) and completed online questionnaires across three timepoints (baseline, post-program and 3-month follow-up). Measures include parental sensitivity, parental acceptance and understanding, psychological flexibility, mindful parenting, parental mental health, overall family experience, quality of life, and child behaviours. Intent-to-treat analyses indicated greater rates of improvement for parents allocated to the AutInsight program, with small- to medium-sized effects for parent-reported parental sensitivity (EA-SR mutual attunement d = 0.84, EA-SR child involvement d = 0.50), as well as overall autism family experience (AFEQtotald = 0.38, AFEQfamily lifed = 0.29). Greater rates of improvement were also found in parent-reported child conduct problems (SDQ d = 0.62) and prosocial behaviours (SDQ d = 0.48). No significant results were found in observed parental sensitivity or any other measure. Results suggest preliminary evidence of effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability of the AutInsight program. A larger, fully powered trial is warranted. This trial was prospectively registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (Trial ID: ACTRN12623000806662).
Journal Title
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Item Access Status
Note
This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject
Education
Health sciences
Psychology
Persistent link to this record
Citation
Lee, JYS; Whittingham, K; Mitchell, AE, AutInsight: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) of a Consumer-Informed Parent Support Program for Parents of Autistic Children, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2025