Mothers' satisfaction with a home based early intervention programme for children with ASD

Background: Early intervention services adopting a family‐centred approach are considered important for ensuring parent satisfaction. This study investigated the satisfaction of two mothers with an early intervention programme for young children with autistic spectrum disorder.

Materials and Methods: While 16 mother–child dyads participated in a larger study, two mothers who reported considerably lower satisfaction with the programme than the rest of the mothers were the focus of this paper. Using descriptive case studies, various child, parent and service delivery factors that may have influenced satisfaction are described.

Results: Child and parent factors that may have lessened satisfaction for these two mothers included the child’s lack of improvement, child’s goal performance post‐intervention, parenting stress and decreased parenting competence. Both mothers also had decreased perceptions of the family‐centredness of the service and expressed difficulties with establishing collaborative partnerships.

Conclusion: This paper proposes that parental satisfaction may be influenced by numerous factors relating to the child, parent and service. Relationships with service providers appear to be particularly important.