This pilot study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of a home-based parent training and coaching program on the use of naturalistic and visual teaching strategies by parents of children (aged 2–5 years) with Down syndrome to promote and enhance these children’s social-pragmatic communication skills. Five parent interventionist–child dyads participated. A single-case multiple-baseline design demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of the parent training and coaching program on parents’ correct use of naturalistic and visual teaching strategies. Findings suggest that parents and children benefited from the intervention. Parents learned the new teaching strategies, implemented them with high fidelity, and were satisfied with intervention procedures and outcomes. In addition, parents reported improvement in their children’s social-pragmatic communication skills. Implications for practice and future research are described.

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,

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We conducted a multiattribute utility (MAU) evaluation to assess the Parent-Implemented Communication Strategies (PiCS) project which was funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). In the PiCS project parents of young children with developmental disabilities are trained and coached in their homes on naturalistic and visual teaching strategies to enhance their children's social-pragmatic communication skills. This report focuses on the evaluation process, the application of the MAU approach to evaluate the PiCS project, the results of the evaluation, and a discussion of the benefits and concerns related to the use of the MAU approach to conduct a comprehensive evaluation.Keywords Program evaluation . Multiattribute utility evaluation . Early childhood intervention Several evaluators have explained the purposes of project evaluations. Taylor-Powell et al. (1996) stated that an evaluation should create greater understanding of the project being evaluated. Lewis et al. (2003) contended that project evaluations should help those implementing projects to make decisions, based on what is working and what is not. Peterson (2002) clearly stated that project evaluation must move beyond simply measuring program outcomes and provide accountability for those who implement the project. Perhaps most importantly, Scriven (1967) unequivocally declared that while evaluations may have many purposes the primary purpose is to determine "the estimation of merit, worth, value, etc." (p. 5) of that which is being