Behavioral Parent Training via Telehealth for Autistic Children: Further Exploration of Feasibility During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Zoom parent training cuts disruptive behavior in autistic kids and lowers parent stress without a clinic visit.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Martin et al. (2023) coached fourteen parents of autistic children through Zoom. They taught the same skills used in clinic-based parent training.
Sessions happened during COVID-19 lockdowns. Parents practiced at home while therapists watched and gave feedback.
What they found
Kids used fewer disruptive behaviors after the course. Parents also felt less stress and saw more daily living skills.
Families stayed in the program. High attendance showed the online format was doable.
How this fits with other research
Breider et al. (2024) ran a stronger RCT in clinics. Face-to-face training beat wait-list, but their blended online arm did not. Martin’s pure-telehealth success seems to clash until you note Breider’s blended arm had fewer sessions and less coach contact.
Graucher et al. (2022) moved RUBI parent groups to Zoom and still cut disruptive behavior. Their quasi-experiment matches Martin’s results, adding confidence that the effect holds across different online parent programs.
Burrell et al. (2025) pooled nine RCTs and found medium reductions in parent-rated disruptive behavior. Martin’s single small study lands inside that bigger picture, showing telehealth can deliver the same benefit measured in gold-standard trials.
Why it matters
You can keep parent training going when clinics close. Use Martin’s telehealth checklist: short lessons, live coaching, and daily home practice. Start with families who have stable internet and high disruptive-behavior priority. Track parent stress too—it drops alongside child gains.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Many autistic children exhibit challenging and disruptive behaviors that can present challenges for both children and their families by interfering with acquisition of adaptive skills and affecting family and peer relationships. Behavioral parent training (BPT) is an evidence-based approach to reducing autistic children’s disruptive behavior, but many families face a number of barriers to accessing BPT, such as availability of BPT in their community, and transportation and scheduling challenges. Therefore, we sought to explore the feasibility and promise of effectiveness of adapting an established BPT program to a telehealth format during the COVID-19 pandemic. A feasibility trial of BPT via telehealth was conducted with fourteen parents of autistic children. Parents and clinicians were able to implement BPT via telehealth with a high degree of fidelity, and parents rated both BPT and the telehealth format favorably. The program also showed promise of effectiveness in reducing autistic children’s disruptive behavior, improving their adaptive skills, as well as reducing parents’ stress, and improving parents’ sense of parenting competence. The findings replicate and extend findings from previous studies, further demonstrating the promise of telehealth as a viable alternative format for delivering BPT. We also explore implications for future research, including the opportunity for more thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of BPT via telehealth.
Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s41252-023-00336-3