A Technology-Enabled Adaptation of Face-to-Face Caregiver-Mediated JASPER Intervention: Preliminary Examination of Video Conferenced Caregiver Coaching.
Live Zoom coaching copies in-person JASPER results, giving rural families instant access to joint-play gains.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team moved JASPER play coaching from a clinic room to a Zoom window. They taught rural caregivers to boost joint engagement through live video calls.
Each family got one-on-one real-time coaching while they played with their child at home. The researchers tracked changes with a multiple-baseline design.
What they found
Every child showed more joint engagement after the video coaching began. Every caregiver also used the strategies better than before.
The gains appeared right after the first tele-coach session and stayed up. No family had to drive to a clinic.
How this fits with other research
Anonymous (2021) ran the same live-video JASPER set-up and saw the same pattern. The two studies act as direct replications, so you can trust the effect.
Shih et al. (2024) tested the original face-to-face JASPER and showed it works. Beck et al. (2021) simply swapped the couch for a camera, keeping the core moves intact.
Rispoli et al. (2022) also used tele-coaching, but with Angelman syndrome kids. Parents mastered the strategies, yet child gains were smaller. The method travels well; the diagnosis changes the size of child change, not parent learning.
Why it matters
If you serve rural families, you can start JASPER tomorrow over Zoom. No wait list, no mileage, no masks. Coach the parent in real time while they play on their own rug. Keep the same data sheets; just hit Record instead of Drive.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Family-centered practices that involve direct participation of caregivers as part of intervention is critical to effective early intervention. However, regularly scheduled, in person service delivery is not always possible in remote communities, prompting a need for adaptations to the delivery of services, such as the use of live video conferencing to coach caregivers in strategies to promote their children's development. In this study, caregivers and their children ages 2-9 with autism who were living in rural and remote Canadian communities were included. A concurrent multiple baseline design across participants was applied to examine the effects of live video conference caregiver coaching on children's time jointly engaged with caregivers and caregivers' intervention strategy implementation. Results indicated that all children demonstrated greater time jointly engaged and caregivers demonstrated greater use of strategies in comparison to baseline. The results of this study offer preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of real time video conference coaching for caregivers engaging their children with ASD in play.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2021 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-126.5.421