Telehealth Training in Principles of Applied Behavior Analysis for Caregivers of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government declared a state of emergency and many applied behavior analysis clinics temporarily closed. The current study described a pilot of an existing manualized caregiver behavior skills training, the Online and Applied System of Intervention Skills (OASIS), to promote telehealth caregiver training during the pandemic and facilitate the start of early intervention for families on waitlists. The OASIS telehealth curriculum trains caregivers to use applied behavior analysis with their children with autism spectrum disorder. Pre/post measures suggest that OASIS modestly improved parent knowledge, improved perceived quality of life, decreased stress, improved caregiver self-efficacy, and was viewed positively by participating families.

A mixed-methods examination of clinicians’ perceived barriers to telehealth delivered applied behavior analysis

“…Current literature on telehealth-delivered ABA services has demonstrated successful implementation of various techniques including functional analysis, functional communication training, naturalistic teaching, and parent-mediated interventions or parent training or caregiver coaching (Barretto et al, 2006;Lindgren et al, 2016;Tomlinson et al, 2018;Ferguson et al, 2019). Studies also suggest comparable improvement in behavior challenges and social communication skills for children with autism, in addition to increased parent knowledge and implementation of ABA techniques at home, across in person and telehealth-delivered ABA services (Peterson et al, 2017;Romani and Schieltz, 2017;Tomlinson et al, 2018;Blackman et al, 2020;Lindgren et al, 2020;Schieltz and Wacker, 2020;Unholz-Bowden et al, 2020;Pollard et al, 2021;Batton et al, 2022;Ferguson et al, 2022). Caregiver coaching via telehealth in ABA principles has led to high accuracy of caregiver implementation of intervention techniques with their child, and parents report satisfaction with and acceptability of telehealth delivery methods (Romani and Schieltz, 2017;Araiba and Čolić, 2022;Ferguson et al, 2022;Gerow et al, 2022).…”