Treating Children with ASD: The Perspective of Caregivers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is challenging. Parents/caregivers' perspective on the effectiveness of therapies and services available to their children is important but neglected in the literature on ASD. This study investigated such perspective through questionnaire-guided interviews with a group of parents in the province of Manitoba (Canada). A secondary objective of the study was to explore how health care professionals and specifically pharmacists can assist in providing better care to children with ASD. Methods: Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Data on diagnoses and prescribed medications were collected from medical charts. Parents/caregivers completed questionnaires during interviews scheduled at their convenience. Specific questions were asked to gather caregivers/parents' perspectives on the effectiveness of medications and non-pharmacological interventions in controlling symptoms experienced by their children. Information on access to education and health services was also assessed. Common themes were identified using thematic analysis. RESULTS: All children attended school, 88% were males, 50% experienced eating/sleeping difficulties; 69% reported Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder comorbidity. Risperidone was reported to be effective in controlling aggressive behaviours. Methylphenidate and aripiprazole were often discontinued. Melatonin and occupational therapy services were said to be very useful. Access to behavioural therapy was often limited. Parents were concerned about lack of trained professionals in schools, limited understanding of their children's needs, and uncertainty for the future. CONCLUSIONS: Better education and awareness are necessary to help ASD children and their families. Pharmacists should explore opportunities to provide better services. This article is open to POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW. Registered readers (see "For Readers") may comment by clicking on ABSTRACT on the issue's contents page.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".