Feasibility and acceptability of a low-resource-intensive, transdiagnostic intervention for children with social-communication challenges in early childhood education settings.

This was a feasibility study with 25 teacher-child pairs and no control group, so pre-post changes cannot show that SEE-KS-EC caused improvement. The children were selected by teachers as having social-communication challenges, and only 3 children had an autism diagnosis, so the sample is not a diagnosed autism group. Attrition was uneven: 6 pairs did not complete, and children of teachers who completed had higher SSIS-SEL scores and lower SRS-2 scores than children of teachers who did not. The online module time benchmark was missed: only 14 of 19 teachers spent more than 180 minutes on modules. Spring cohorts compressed the program because the school year was ending, with some teachers receiving only one or two coaching sessions. The study was done in 2021-2022, during pandemic recovery with high early childhood staff turnover. The feasibility benchmarks were chosen by investigators and lacked strong empirical basis. The study did not test moderators such as teacher education or whether teachers were released from duties.

No author conflict-of-interest declaration is provided in the supplied text. The publication types list NIH extramural support and non-U.S. government support.

Do not read the pre-post gains as evidence that SEE-KS-EC works. This was a small uncontrolled feasibility study with no comparison group, and observed child active engagement did not show a significant pre-post change.