Effects of child characteristics on the outcomes of a parent support program

Background Previous research has reported on the effectiveness of the Signposts program for supporting families of children with an intellectual disability and difficult behaviour (Hudson et al., 2003; Hudson, Cameron, Matthews, 2008). This paper reports on an investigation of the extent to which child characteristics moderate the effectiveness of the program. Method Data collected from 689 participants in the Signposts program were analysed to examine if the child characteristics of gender, age, or associated disability impacted on outcomes. Results The gender analyses produced mean effect sizes of 0.39 for boys and 0.42 for girls; however, this difference was not statistically significant. The age analyses produced mean effect sizes of 0.38 for children aged 2-5 years, 0.42 for children aged 6-12 years, and 0.30 for children aged 13-18 years; however, these differences among the age groups were not statistically significant. The associated disability analyses across 7 groups produced mean effect sizes ranging from 0.31 to 0.75; however, the differences among these groups were not statistically significant. Conclusions First, gender was not a moderating variable. Second, while the effect size for the older age group seemed to be marginally lower than that of the other two groups, age was not found to be a moderating variable. Finally, type of associated disability was not found to be a moderating variable. Methodological limitations of the study necessitate care in interpreting the findings.