Previous research has shown that due to a lack of support by their environment, parent who cares for an autistic child is associated with higher levels of parental stress than parenting children with a physical disability or children with other neuro-developmental disorders. They were also found as moderately emotionally over-involved with their children’s matters.
High levels of emotional overinvolvement are present in families of individuals with an at-risk mental state of psychosis and can negatively impact on parent’s functioning and symptoms, as well as their psychological well-being. That means parents of autistic children may be moderately distressed and emotionally overinvolved that influence their mental health.

There are three different phases in PUMP program.
In Phase l, recruited parents of autistic children will watch 20 robot dramas online, which feature different challenging misbehaviours demonstrated by a child robot, and the inappropriate followed by appropriate responses of parent robot.
Then parents proceed into Phase ll, parents are asked to watch the pre-recorded videos that provide the details of the home-based intervention during the self-directed lessons.
In Phase lll, parents will be divided into small groups and attend the two focus-group sharing sessions with the clinical psychologist on Zoom. There they can share successful implementation of the learnt parenting skills and the clinical psychologist will introduce additional tailor-made interventions.

There are long-term intended impacts expected from the project. Parents are expected to have a 20% decrease of distress and emotional overinvolvement and a 20% increase of parental self-efficacy in resolving the dilemmas and parental reflective functioning after completion of the program. Their children will also have a 20% decrease in conduct problems and emotional problems.

80-120 Parents of autistic children aged 3 to 12 will be recruited in social media and through Hong Kong Christian Service.

2023

Autism, Education