Sibling Participation in Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

In addition to many studies investigating the effectiveness of sibling-mediated interventions for children with ASD, there are literature review studies evaluating these researches conducted till 2012. However, there is no recent systematic review on the subject in literature. The purpose of this systematic review is to examine the literature and make a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the existing single-case studies that investigated the effectiveness of sibling-mediated interventions for children with ASD between 1977 and 2018 by demographic and methodological features and findings variables. 166 studies in the initial search in search engines and 8 studies upon examining reference lists, 174 in total, were identified. Finally, a total of 16 studies were included in the review in consideration of inclusion an exclusion criteria. The study results showed studies in which ND siblings were implementers successfully taught target skills to siblings with ASD. However, it was found out that intervention packages used in the studies consisted of similar or different components, and that length of training varied. Findings obtained in the study were discussed and suggestions were made for future research.