Challenging Behaviors Online Modules for Parents of Young Children with Disabilities: A Pilot Feasibility Study
Four brief online lessons please parents and raise their knowledge, yet child behavior change is still unknown.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lee et al. (2022) built four short online lessons for parents.
Each lesson shows how to handle tantrums, hitting, or running away.
Twenty-one parents of 3- to young learners with autism or delays tried the course.
Parents watched videos, took quizzes, and answered surveys at home.
No one came to their house; everything happened on a laptop.
What they found
Parents said the course was easy to use and very helpful.
Their quiz scores rose from a large share to a large share.
They also reported using more praise and fewer harsh words.
The study did not measure if the children’s behavior actually changed.
How this fits with other research
de Leonardis et al. (2025) just tested a phone app version of parent training.
Parents again loved it, showing the idea keeps working across formats.
Gray et al. (2026) showed that web modules can teach skills with a large share accuracy.
Yet Gray had to add live feedback for some learners; Lee did not test that step.
Gerow et al. (2020) proved parents can run full functional analyses at home.
Lee skipped the FA step, so we still do not know if the online tips work without it.
Together, the papers say: parents like remote help, but we need child data next.
Why it matters
You can send these four short videos to families on your wait-list today.
They cost nothing to scale and parents rate them highly.
Just remember to add a quick child probe or FA before you call it treatment.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Challenging behaviors exhibited by young children negatively affect development and may also prevent children from receiving appropriate education. These behaviors may also hinder positive family interactions and have a significant impact on parents and other family members. Although various parent training approaches exist to increase parents’ capacity to address these challenging behaviors, many parents are reportedly not able to access training due to time and resource constraints. To address inequitable dissemination of information, we developed and piloted the use of the Challenging Behavior Online Modules with 10 parents of children with disabilities. In particular, we examined the feasibility of the Challenging Behavior Online Modules for increasing parents’ knowledge and use of positive parenting practices with their young children. Parents reported satisfaction with the contents and delivery method of the intervention. Implications and directions for future research are also suggested.
Education & Treatment of Children, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s43494-021-00067-x