Efficacy of the adapted Cycles approach in telepractice speech-language pathology with a parental focus for children with speech sound disorders.

Only ten children took part, five per group. The authors state that this small sample made the statistical comparison between the groups difficult and that the study would need more children per group to confirm the trend they saw. Every child received treatment, so the study cannot show how much of the improvement would have happened without it. The two assessments before treatment were meant to help judge this, but there was no untreated group. The children in Group 1 used an electronic device for longer each day than those in Group 2, and the researchers had no control over the devices or internet connections families used. Parents reported their own children's interest, understanding and need for help with the home training. Those ratings come from the people who delivered the sessions and were not checked by anyone else. Family income and parents' education were not measured, so the authors could not consider them in their explanations of the results.

The authors declare no financial support and nothing to declare for conflicts of interest.

Do not read this as proof that parents can take over from the therapist. The group with more home sessions improved more on one test, but that difference was only a trend and the study had five children per group. The two group comparisons that were the same across tests showed no difference.