EARLY INTERVENTION FOR ASD CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES: FROM THE RELATIONAL CONTEXT EVALUATION (DC: 0 TO 5, AXIS II, PART B) TO THE COPARENTING SUPPORT

Introduction: A new clinical intervention, based on a videofeedback procedure for families with ASD children, will be presented. The Aim is to involve parents to promote the child social communication a) assessing the Relational Context (DC: 0-5, Axis II – Part B) to highlight the family strengths or concerns in caregiving environment and b) sharing the assessment with parents through the videofeedback. The hypothesis is that functional family relationships can moderate typical ASD interactions and social disorder. Methods: The procedure was proposed to eight families with 2 to 4 years old children with a suspect autism disorder and without any therapy in progress. Three sessions have been gathered: the first one for the family observation through the LTP procedure; the second one for the videofeedback and the third one for the follow-up, six months later. The assessment focused: family structure, style of child engagement and coparenting style. Children have been evaluated with ADOS, ADI-R, VABS, PSI-SF and PVB. Results: The assessment highlights a positive influence among the functional family alliance and the style of the child’s triangular engagement that seems associated with bids with a predominantly positive affective configuration. The follow-up highlights that although at the beginning some families showed a dysfunctional family alliance, it can become a functional one. A contrast case highlighted the evolution towards the dysfunctionality of family alliance, together with the worsening of the style of the child’s engagement. Conclusions: The goal is to contribute implementing the guidelines for the intervention with particular reference to environmental caregiving support, which is a protection factor for social development of autistic children.