Enhancing interactions during daily routines: A randomized controlled trial of a web-based tutorial for parents of young children with ASD.
Lisa V Ibañez, Kenneth Kobak, Amy Swanson and 3 others
PMID 29316336WHAT IT FOUND
Parents who used a web tutorial reported using more evidence-based strategies during routines, and their children showed better engagement and social communication at follow-up.
Gains came from parent reports only, and children also received other community services.
Key findings
01The tutorial increased parents' reported use of evidence-based strategies and children's reported engagement during routines at post-treatment and follow-up.
02Tutorial parents reported higher parenting efficacy and lower parent-child relationship stress at follow-up, but not immediately after the tutorial.
03Tutorial children showed higher reported social communication scores than Control children at follow-up, despite lower scores at baseline.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
All outcomes came from parent report by one parent per child, with no direct observation, so reported improvement could reflect social desirability or placebo effect. Post-treatment data were missing for 11 of 52 Tutorial parents and 1 of 52 Control parents, and 6 of the 11 missing Tutorial parents did not complete the tutorial. ASD diagnoses were confirmed only by community reports, not by a research-team evaluation. The sample was mostly White, non-Hispanic, college-educated mothers, so results may not apply to fathers or families with different backgrounds. Follow-up lasted only 2 months, so long-term gains are unknown. Children also received other community intervention services that were not quantified, so the tutorial's independent contribution cannot be separated. The routine-specific parent and child surveys were created for this study and had not been used before.
Declared interests
The supplied metadata lists NIH extramural research support. The text does not include a conflicts-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the web tutorial alone caused the gains. The Tutorial group started lower than Control on social communication, all outcomes were parent-reported, and children also received other community intervention services.