Symposia
Autism Spectrum and Developmental Disorders
CYnthia Anderson, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President
May Institute
Boone, North Carolina
Effectiveness of behavioral parent training (BPT) is well established for reducing child disruptive behavior, increasing adaptive skills, and for reducing parental stress and increasing parental sense of competence. Although BPT has been studied most extensively with young, neurotypical children, emerging evidence supports its efficacy for autistic children and their parents. One such evidence based BPT designed for families of autistic children is the Research Unit on Behavioral Interventions (RUBI). Like most BPT programs, RUBI has been primarily implemented in clinical settings. The reach of BPT to families of autistic children could be extended if it could be delivered remotely via telehealth. To that end, we used a mixed-method design to explore the feasibility and promise of efficacy of delivering RUBI via telehealth (RUBI-T) with 21 parent/child dyads. We worked with families in two geographically distinct regions in the United States: an urban/suburban region and a rural, mountainous region. Initial results indicate that RUBI-T can be implemented by clinicians and parents with fidelity. Parents both RUBI and the telehealth format acceptable, and qualitative analysis revealed that telehealth reduced barriers to accessing services such as a lack of local clinical expertise and family logistical constraints. Further, RUBI-T shows promise of efficacy for improving parents’ sense of competence and reducing stress, as well as reducing disruptive behaviors among children and improving adaptive skills. Our findings are consistent with previous research and provide a foundation for further investigation of the efficacy of RUBI-T.