Review on Psychosocial Interventions for Siblings of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have unique characteristics such as impairments in communication and social interaction. The impact of these characteristics constitutes a challenge to other children in the family. Most of the researchers in the field of developmental disability have focused on the parents and not on the siblings. The purpose of this article is to review the current literature related to psychosocial interventions for siblings of children with ASD. The primary electronic data search was carried out in PubMed database, Scopus, Google scholar, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, and Psych NET. All the searches yielded a total of 891 titles. After screening for necessary inclusion criteria, eight studies were included in the final review. All studies reported positive impacts on sibling relationship quality, understanding about autism. Furthermore, these effects were maintained from post intervention to follow-up. Review findings imply that there was a significantly positive impact on target children after participating intervention program. Implications for both research and practice are discussed. © 2016, Springer India Pvt. Ltd.