A Pilot Study Comparing Tele-therapy and In-Person Therapy: Perspectives from Parent-Mediated Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Conclusions about the efficacy of tele-therapy for parent-mediated intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are limited, due to the shortage of direct comparisons between tele-therapy and traditional face-to-face therapy. In this study, we implemented a parent training program, which targeted on language facilitating intervention strategies. Fifteen parents of children with ASD participated in person, and 15 participated via online video conferencing. We measured parents’ intervention fidelity and children’s initiations, responses, lexical diversity and morphosyntactic complexity. Results indicated significant improvements in parents’ fidelity and children’s lexical diversity and morphosyntactic complexity. No significant differences were detected between the two therapy delivery groups on any outcome measures. Finally, children’s progress on morphosyntactic complexity was significantly correlated with parents’ improvement on fidelity.