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.

Increasing social interaction using prelinguistic milieu teaching with nonverbal school-age children with autism.

PURPOSE: Children with autism display marked deficits in initiating and maintaining social interaction. Intervention using play routines can create a framework for developing and maintaining social interaction between these children and their communication partners. METHOD: Six nonverbal 5- to 8-year-olds with autism were taught to engage in social interaction within salient play routines. Prelinguistic milieu teaching (PMT) techniques were used to teach the children to communicate intentionally during these routines. Intervention focused on the children's social interaction with an adult. The effects of intervention were evaluated using a multiple baseline design across participants. RESULTS: At study onset, the participants demonstrated few consistent interaction with others. With intervention, all of the children improved their ability to sustain social interactions, as evidenced by an increase in the number of communicative interactions during play routines. Participants also increased their overall rate of initiated intentional communication. CONCLUSION: Development of intentional prelinguistic communication within salient social routines creates opportunities for an adult to teach social and communication skills to young school-age children with autism who function at a nonverbal level.

The use of speech generating devices in communication interventions for individuals with developmental disabilities: a review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE: This review synthesizes communication interventions that involved the use of speech generating devices (SGD) for individuals with developmental disabilities. METHODS: Systematic searches of electronic databases, journals and reference lists identified 35 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. These studies were evaluated in terms of (a) participants, (b) SGD function, (c) SGD characteristics, (d) intervention procedures, (e) intervention results and (f) certainty of evidence. RESULTS: Across these studies, intervention was provided to a total of 86 participants aged 1-42 years. Communication skills targeted included requesting, social or conversational skills, labelling items and receptive language. Intervention approaches were categorized as using Discrete Trial Training, Milieu teaching or a combined instructional approach. Positive outcomes were reported in 86% of the studies with 54% of studies categorized as providing conclusive evidence. CONCLUSION: This literature base is considered promising due to the large number of conclusive studies and the replication of intervention approaches.