Behavior problems are a common and concerning challenge among children with developmental delay (DD). Approximately 50% of children with DD have a comorbid mental disorder or serious behavior problems- a prevalence three times as high as that found in typically developing youths. Behavioral parent training (BPT) is the gold-standard intervention for treating child behavior problems in typically developing children and in children with DD. However, high levels of parental stress are associated with reduced or no response to BPT for children with DD. Consequently, parental stress may attenuate the efficacy of the gold-standard, empirically supported treatment for behavior problems among children with DD. As such, parental stress is a critical point of intervention for improving both parent and child outcomes in families of children with DD. The purpose of this study is to quantify the therapeutic benefit of adding a parent stress-reduction intervention prior to delivering BPT in order to more effectively reduce child behavior problems, and to investigate the mechanisms through which intervention outcomes occur.
