Parent-mediated play‐based interventions to improve social communication and language skills of preschool autistic children: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Emre Deniz, Gill Francis, Carole Torgerson, & Umar Toseeb

Child and Adolescent Neurodevelopmental Diversity Research Lab (CANDY)

Psychology in Education Research Centre (PERC)

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Play & Autism

• Autism is a pervasive neurodevelopmental condition with a prevalence of approximately 1 in 44 children in the US [28].

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• Autism is characterised by persistent deficits in social communication, and language skills [29].

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• Autistic individuals may exhibit some or all of the following: deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, reduced sharing of interests, failure to initiate or respond to social interactions, deficits in nonverbal (e.g., eye contact, gestures, and facial expressions), and verbal communication.

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• Early years interventions have shown to be effective in improving the social communication and language skills of autistic children.

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• Therefore, various play-based interventions have been developed to support those developmental areas of autistic children.

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• Although researchers have previously reported the overall effectiveness of different types of play-based interventions on the social communication and language skills of autistic children, no previous systematic reviews have yet evaluated the effectiveness of parent-mediated play-based interventions in preschool autistic children.

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Direct play therapy

Therapist & child

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Indirect play therapy: Therapist & Parents/Peers/Teachers & Child

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The Current Study Protocol

In the current protocol, the following elements of the proposed systematic review and meta-analysis are reported:

1. Aims,
2. Research questions,
3. Study methodology (e.g., target sample, search strategy, inclusion criteria, predictor and outcome variables, data extraction, quality appraisal, and data analysis),
4. Conflict of interest.

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The Current Study Protocol

The overarching aims of the main study will be to;

1. report the key characteristics and
2. synthesise the results of the included studies

To address these aims, the following research questions will be asked:

1. What are the key characteristics of parent-mediated play-based interventions?
2. How effective are parent-mediated play-based interventions in improving the social communication and language skills of preschool autistic children?
3. What factors, if any, mediate/moderate the impact of parent-mediated play-based interventions on children’s social communication and language outcomes?

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Methods

Study Design: A systematic review and meta-analysis

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Target Sample: Preschool autistic children

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Predictor variables: Parent-mediated play-based

interventions

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Outcome variables: Autistic traits, social communication, and language outcomes.

Data Extraction: Information related to intervention types, play approaches, sample sizes, experimental designs, etc.

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Quantified outcomes: Numbers, means, standard deviations, standard errors, confidence intervals, and reported effect sizes (Standardised mean differences).

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• How did we follow the open science practice?

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Pre-registration

1^st step:

We pre-registered our

study protocol with PROSPERO

(The International Prospective

Register of Systematic Reviews)

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Prisma Statement & Checklist

2^nd step:

We followed the PRISMA

statement and PRISMA-P

checklist (Preferred Reporting

Items for Systematic review and

Meta-Analysis Protocols) when

pre-registering our study

protocol with PROSPERO.

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OSF Public Project

3^rd step:

We created an OSF project for

our study protocol and uploaded

all supplementary materials and

figures into our OSF project. All

supplementary documents were

made publicly available for other

researchers aiming reproducibility

and replicability.

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Preprint: PsyArXiv

4^th step:

We submitted our study protocol

to PsyArXiv as a Preprint which is a

preprint repository for the

psychological sciences hosted by the

Center for Open Science (OSF). Our

pre-print is linked to our OSF project

and our registered study protocol so all

supplementary files can be read easily.

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Open Access Publication

5^th step:

We submitted our study protocol

to PLOS ONE, which is a non-profit

Open Access Journal. PLOS ONE is in

publishing agreement with the

UoY, that is, all researchers can

freely publish their research on PLOS

ONE with no extra publication fee.

Our protocol has recently been accepted for open access publication and is now in production (PLOS ONE).

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CANDY LAB: Latest Open Access Publications - 2022

• Parent-mediated play‐based interventions to improve social communication and language skills of preschool autistic children:

A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol E Deniz, GA Francis, C Torgerson, U Toseeb

• Play-based interventions for mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis focused on children and adolescents with autism

spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder GA Francis, E Deniz, C Torgerson, U Toseeb

• A Longitudinal Study of Sibling Bullying and Mental Health in Autistic Adolescents: The Role of Self-esteem E Deniz, U Toseeb
• Sibling Bullying in Turkish Adolescents: Translation and Cross-Cultural Validation of the Sibling Bullying Questionnaire Deniz et al., 2022
• A longitudinal study of the mental health of autistic children and adolescents and their parents during COVID-19: Part 2, qualitative findings K Asbury, U Toseeb
• Sibling bullying: a prospective longitudinal study of associations with positive and negative mental health during adolescence U Toseeb, D Wolke
• Sibling conflict during COVID‐19 in families with special educational needs and disabilities U Toseeb
• How did autistic children, and their parents, experience school transition during the Covid‐19 pandemic? A Code, L Fox, K Asbury, U Toseeb
• Educational technology for learners with disabilities in primary school settings in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic literature review P Lynch, N Singal, GA Francis
• Parents’ Experiences of the Impact of Changing School During COVID-19 on their Autistic Child’s Friendships: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis L Fox, K Asbury, A Code, U Toseeb�

For more information, please visit Emre Deniz – OSF - https://psyarxiv.com/a7r9t/

Thanks for listening

References & Resources

Further information regarding the presented study and cited resources can be found on Emre Deniz’s open science framework web profile (OSF) https://psyarxiv.com/a7r9t/

For more information, please visit Emre Deniz – OSF - https://psyarxiv.com/a7r9t/