Many treatments and educational programmes have been designed for children
with autism since Dr Leo Kanner first described this disorder in 1943. Over the
past 30 years there have been enormous changes in approaches to treatment.
Parents are now often successfully included in teaching programmes for
children with autism. It has been suggested that the earlier these programmes
start, the better the outcome for the child, hence the current emphasis on early
intervention programmes.
There is a demonstrated need for a range of evidence based early intervention
programmes for a child who has been given a diagnosis of autism.
‘Pre-Schoolers with Autism’ is an effective, manualized parent education
programme that was developed by the authors as a response to our concern that
parents and carers of young children with autism can easily be left out of the
learning loop right from the start.