ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frcha.2025.1544344
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancing interventions and therapeutic outcomes for autistic youth: a multidisciplinary perspectiveView all 5 articles
Cooperative parent mediated therapy for Italian children with autism spectrum disorder: a Clinical Experimental Study in a Community Healthcare Service in Italy
Provisionally accepted
Alessandra Carta1*
Laura Casula2Salvatorica Manca3
Mariangela Valentina Puci4Giuseppina Puseddu1
Elisa Fucà2
Giovanni Sotgiu4
Stefano Vicari2,5
STEFANO SOTGIU1
Giovanni Valeri2- 1Unit of Child Neuropsychiatry, Department of Medicine, Surgery and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy
- 2Childhood and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital (IRCCS), Rome, Lazio, Italy
- 3Complex Operating Unit of Child Neuropsychiatry, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services of Sassari - San Camillo, Sassari, Italy
- 4Clinical Epidemiology and Medical Statistics Unit, Department of Medicine, Surgery and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy
- 5Department of Life Sciences and Public Health, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Lazio, Italy
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This Randomized Control Trial (RCT) aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Cooperative Parent Mediated therapy (CPMT), a targeted parent-coaching program for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), in Community Healthcare Service in Italy. Forty children with ASD and their parents were randomly assigned to treatment conditions: the Control group received Individual Treatment As Usual (TAU Control group); while CPMT group received weekly parent–child sessions in addition to Individual TAU.Primary blinded outcomes were 6-months post-intervention change in parent -child interaction scores. Secondary outcomes included ASD symptom severity, adaptive functioning and parental stress levels. Baseline and post-treatment evaluations, at 6 months of follow up, were performed by an independent team. CPMT group showed significant add-on benefits on parent-child interactions, severity of autism symptoms , adaptive skills and parental stress level. This study provides preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of the CPMT model also in community services, representing a further step forward in research on the implementation of therapy for ASD in community healthcare service.
Keywords: Neurodevelopmental disorders, parent-child interaction, Community healthcare service, Additional therapeutic effects, Autism Spectrum Disorder
Received: 12 Dec 2024; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Carta, Casula, Manca, Valentina Puci, Puseddu, Fucà, Sotgiu, Vicari, SOTGIU and Valeri. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alessandra Carta, Unit of Child Neuropsychiatry, Department of Medicine, Surgery and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Sassari, 07100, Italy
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