Internet-based intervention training for parents of young children with disabilities: a promising service-delivery model

Abstract

Efficient early intervention (EI) services are required to serve the needs of young children with disabilities and the needs of their families. Effective EI includes family-centred practices, evidence-based interventions, parent involvement/ training, and delivery in children's natural environments. Due to the challenges of providing home-based EI for children with disabilities, there is a need to identify alternative service models. One possible alternative service-delivery model is training and coaching parents from a distance, via Internet technologies. The purposes of this paper are to (a) describe the challenges related to homebased EI services, (b) discuss the potential advantages of using Internet-based interventions as a supplemental service model, and (c) describe current Internetbased interventions by reviewing the literature related to training parents of young children with autism, from a distance via the Internet. Efficient early intervention (EI) services are required to serve the needs of young children with disabilities and the needs of their families. Effective EI includes family-centred practices, evidence-based interventions, parent involvement/training, and delivery in children's natural environments. Due to the challenges of providing home-based EI for young children with disabilities (i.e. clinician-implemented intervention in the home), there is a need to identify alternative service models. Parent training and parent-implemented interventions could be an effective way to enhance services for young children with disabilities. Brookman-Frazee (2004) reported that collaboration between parents and professionals is associated with positive outcomes for both children and their families. Parents can learn new teaching strategies and skills and implement them accurately with their children (Dunlap, Ester, Langhans,

Parent-Mediated Intervention Training Delivered Remotely for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder Living Outside of Urban Areas: Systematic Review

“…Systematic literature reviews support the use of parent-mediated interventions in children with ASD [ 23 , 33 , 34 ], as does the use of telehealth in providing education sessions to parents or caregivers who have a child with ASD [ 26 , 35 ]. No systematic review has been published on parent-mediated interventions for families having a child with ASD and living outside of urban areas.…”

Telehealth as a Model for Providing Behaviour Analytic Interventions to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

“…However, a more extensive review capable of identifying the scope, effectiveness and limitations of using telehealth was required. To date there have been five published reviews summarising the body of literature in this area, these reviews have either been too broad (Boisvert et al 2010 ; Knutsen et al 2016 ) or too narrow (Meadan and Daczewitz 2015 ; Neely et al 2016 ; Parsons et al 2017 ). The subsequent paragraphs will discuss the limitations of these reviews in more detail identifying why a specific systematic review in this area in warranted.…”

Training Individuals to Implement Applied Behavior Analytic Procedures via Telehealth: A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…There is currently no known review focusing solely on behavior analytic research, with previous reviews focusing on other fields (e.g., psychotherapy Gros et al 2013; palliative care, Kidd et al 2010; speech pathology, Mashima and Doarn 2008), or more broad training interventions for parents of children with disabilities (e.g., Meadan and Daczewitz 2015). Boisvert et al (2010) recently reviewed literature relating to the use of telehealth for providing support to individuals with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), including five studies focusing solely on ABA techniques.…”

“…For example, it has been used for collaborations between healthcare professionals (e.g., Katzman 2013;Zollo et al 1999), a wide range of assessments (e.g., Loh et al 2004;Turkstra et al 2012), medical diagnostic services (e.g., Edison et al 2008;Torres-Pereira et al 2008), monitoring of long-term conditions (e.g., Fatehi et al 2014;Inglis et al 2014), parent training (e.g., Reese et al 2015;Xie et al 2013), speech and language therapy interventions (e.g., Georgeadis et al 2004;Grogan-Johnson et al 2011), and mental health support (e.g., Klein et al 2010;Mitchell et al 2008). Delivering services via telehealth may have a number of practical advantages for clinical practice in that it may enable increased access to populations that are hard to reach (e.g., those with rare conditions or those living in rural areas), reduce travel related costs, make scheduling appointments easier, and even increase family carer participation in interventions with their child as the clinician is not physically present (see, for discussion, Hilty et al 2002;Meadan and Daczewitz 2015). In relation to psychiatric services, telehealth support has been reported to be reliable, acceptable to both the individuals receiving telehealth and the individual delivering the service, and associated with a range of positive outcomes such as reduced costs and fewer medication errors (Hilty et al 2002).…”