Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at an increased risk of injury, making safety skills training essential. Whether such training is conducted in the natural environment or in contrived settings is an important consideration for generalization and safety purposes. Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments may offer the advantages of both contrived and natural environment training settings, providing structure to create repeated learning opportunities in a safe and realistic analogue of the natural environment. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of an immersive VR safety skills training environment in teaching 3 children with ASD to identify whether it is safe to cross the street. After modifications to the VR training environment, all 3 participants reached mastery criteria in both VR and natural environment settings. Findings suggest that immersive VR is a promising medium for the delivery of safety skills training to individuals with ASD.

The field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) has utilized telehealth for clinical supervision and caregiver guidance with research supporting the use of both modalities. Research demonstrating effectiveness is crucial, as behavior analysts must ensure the services they provide are effective in order to be ethical. With the increased need for patients to access more services via telehealth, due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the current study evaluated the efficacy of telehealth direct therapy to teach new skills to individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study examined the utility of natural environment teaching and discrete trial training strategies provided over a videoconferencing platform to teach new skills directly to seven individuals with varying ASD severity levels. The targeted skills were taught solely through telehealth direct therapy with varying levels of caregiver support across participants and included skills in the language, adaptive, and social domains. In a multiple baseline design, all seven participants demonstrated mastery and maintenance for all targets; in addition, generalization to family members was assessed for some targets. The evidence suggests that telehealth is a modality that is effective and can be considered for all patients when assessing the appropriate location of treatment.Keywords telehealth direct therapy . discrete trial training . natural environment teaching . generalization

The field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) has utilized telehealth for clinical supervision and caregiver consultation and has produced research providing evidence for the efficacy of both modalities. Research demonstrating effectiveness is crucial, as behavior analysts must ensure the services they provide are effective in order to be ethical. With the increased need for patients to access more telehealth direct services, the current study evaluated the efficacy of telehealth direct therapy to teach new skills to individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study examined the utility of natural environment teaching and discrete trial training strategies provided over a videoconferencing platform to teach new skills directly to eight individuals with ASD. The skills acquired by each individual were taught solely through telehealth direct therapy and included skills in the language, adaptive, and social domains. In a multiple baseline design, all eight individuals acquired mastery for all targets; additionally, generalization was assessed to caregivers for some targets. The evidence suggests that telehealth is a modality that is effective and can be considered for all patients when assessing the appropriate location of treatment.