Video-based therapy may help parents of infants with autism risk

Video feedback-based video therapy improved infant attentiveness to parents, parent-child interactions and other positive behavioral outcomes, according to data published in the Lancet Psychiatry.

“Our findings indicate that using video feedback-based therapy to help parents understand and respond to their infant's individual communication style during the first year of life may be able to modify the emergence of autism-related behaviors and symptoms,” Jonathan Green, PhD, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Manchester, UK, said in a press release.

Green and colleagues conducted the two-site, two-arm assessor-blinded trial of 54 families from the observational British Autism Study of Infant Siblings, including infants aged 7 to 10 months at baseline. Their study integrated the use of Video Interaction to Promote Positive Parenting, and compared its use to no intervention.

Data indicate the intervention increased the primary outcome of infant attentiveness to parent (effect size: 0.29; 95% CI, –0.24 to 0.86).

The intervention also appeared to reduce autism risk behaviors (effect size: 0.50; 95% CI, –0.15 to 1.08), increase parental nondirectiveness (effect size: 0.81; 95% CI, 0.28-1.52), improved attention disengagement (effect size: 0.48; 95% CI, –0.01 to 1.02), and parent-rated infant adaptive function (P=.0005), according to researchers.

However, there were no clinical significant effects on language and infants’ response to vowel changes, they wrote.

“Children with autism typically receive treatment beginning at 3 to 4 years old. But our findings suggest that targeting the earliest risk markers of autism – such as lack of attention or reduced social interest or engagement--during the first year of life may lessen the development of these symptoms later on,” Green said in the release.

In an accompanying commentary, Catherine Lord, PhD, of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at Weill Cornell Medical College/NY Presbyterian Hospital, wrote that the paper by Green and colleagues represents “an impressive example of the value of collaboration.”

“The careful and relatively subdued interpretation of the results is probably a product of the values of collaborative work, which requires less personal ambition and a greater focus on the real meaning of results and next steps,” she wrote.

For more information:

Green J. Lancet Psychiatry. 2015;doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(14)00091-1.

Lord C. Lancet Psychiatry. 2015;doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(14)00146-1.

Disclosure: Lord reports royalties from Western Psychological Service, and donations of royalties to Have Dreams in Chicago. All other researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.