Falando com bebês: da detecção de sinais de risco para Autismo à intervenção precoce

Abstract

The autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases are characterized by qualitative impairments in social and communication behavior and a restricted range of activities moreover, restrict interests. On the other hand, there are needs for intervention together with the scarcity of licensed professionals to do the intervention in children with ASD. The objective of this work was to examine the effects of a parent/caregivers training program in their children s outcome. Participated in this study three children diagnosed or suspected ASD with 08, 16 and 18 moths-old and their caregivers. That research was quasi-experimental, within-subjects, AB-based therapy baseline, treatment, and follow-up. Moreover, effect size measures for single-case designs was check with a non-overlapping index, TAU-U. The interventions were made at Interdisciplinary ambulatory of Plantadores de Cana Hospital, Campos dos Goytacazes city, in Rio de Janeiro state. The caregivers and their children were evaluated by 40 minutes sessions once a week for a year; their performance was reviewed in each session. There was an individualized developmental model program for each child. The playful atmosphere was a priority, aiming to set up a social interaction between children and their caregivers, as well as higher participation rates. The subject of study, Izabel has the best answer to intervention; only she has an improvement in the interaction initiatives. She also has advanced in body language, and facial expressions answer rates. Ana, the second child, has improved in body language and language skills. The third child, Márcia had a statistically significant increase of mixed (face and body language) answer rates. No statistically significant changes were found in others variables. However, the treatment makes a positive and noticeable clinical improvement in children. For example, Izabel show elevated face and total expressions answer rates, and Márcia improved her body language initiative. Regarding the caregivers, the Márcia caregivers was highlighted with the increase use frequencies of two strategies: call the child for her name and play with the child by touch, stimulating a smile answer. The Ana and Izabel caregivers increase use frequencies only on strategy: use children s songs and make a funny or complimentary comment for the child to play again. The effect of the early intervention program in the performance of the research subjects was evaluated. We conclude that the intervention program for the caregivers influenced, in a statistically significant way, in the frequency of shifts and modality of responses in children. From the data, it can be concluded that the caregiver intervention, guided by a professional, can be effective and appropriate to the Brazilian socioeconomic context, which government programs and qualified professionals lack to conduct interventions in the early autism treatment