The Effectiveness of KEEP for Families of Children with Developmental Delays: Integrating FIND Video Coaching into Parent Management Training-Oregon Model: a Randomized Trial

Children with developmental delays or disabilities (DD) are at risk for self-regulation difficulties and behaviour problems compared to typically developing children. Intervening early is crucial to prevent long-term adjustment challenges across home and school contexts. Parenting has been identified as a malleable target of intervention for improving children's adaptive functioning across behavioural, emotional and cognitive domains. Although parent management training (PMT) is an identified best-practice, key questions remain about the critical components of interventions and how novel approaches like video feedback may offer additional benefits. Using a pre-test-post-test one group and superiority design, we evaluated the efficacy of two models of the Keeping Parents Trained and Supported (KEEP) preschool program with parent-only components among 175 families with children diagnosed or at-risk for DD. KEEP-P included core PMT (Oregon Model) methods and KEEP-V integrated KEEP with Filming Interactions to Nurture Development video coaching methods for enhancing developmentally supportive interactions. Intervention outcomes on children's behaviour problems and executive functioning, parenting stress and parent-child relationship quality were compared between groups. Both groups demonstrated significant reductions over time in child behavioural problems, developmental problems and parenting stress. Significant improvements were observed in children's executive functioning, parents' sense of competence and mindfulness in parenting. Group differences were observed in parent's sense of competence, with individuals receiving KEEP-P displaying greater increases over time. Higher intervention dosage predicted a greater reduction in stressful child behaviours and greater improvements in children's inhibitory control.

Automated summary

Children with developmental delays or disabilities are at risk for self-regulation difficulties and behavior problems. Early intervention is crucial to prevent long-term adjustment challenges. Parenting has been identified as a target for intervention to improve children's functioning. This study evaluated the efficacy of two models of a preschool program with parent-only components. Both models showed significant improvements in child behavior, parental stress, and executive functioning. The findings highlight the importance of early intervention and parent training in supporting children with developmental delays or disabilities.