Comparison of Online and Face-to-Face Parent Education for Children with Autism and Sleep Problems.

Pitchford et al. (2019) compared two ways to teach parents how to fix sleep problems in kids with autism.

One group met the trainer in person. The other group learned the same lessons through a computer.

Both groups got the same bedtime tips, then the team tracked the kids’ sleep and the parents’ energy for several weeks.

Both sets of families saw better sleep and felt less tired.

The online families kept fewer night wakings and lower parent fatigue at follow-up.

In short, web coaching worked just as well as sitting in a clinic—and saved travel time.

Dai et al. (2023) later tested a fully self-paced online program. Parents learned more skills, but child social gains needed longer than the study window. Together the papers show online parent training is doable; sleep goals just need fewer sessions than social goals.

Delemere et al. (2017) had parents run bedtime fading in their own homes and saw mixed but mostly good sleep changes. Pitchford et al. (2019) adds that you can teach those same tools just as well on a screen.

Perez et al. (2015) found that weekly Zoom coaching helped parents cut problem behavior by over 90%. Pitchford et al. (2019) mirror that success in a different domain—sleep—proving telehealth parent coaching travels beyond behavior reduction.

If your families drive long distances or miss work for clinic visits, offer the sleep-education class online. You keep the gains, drop the commute, and parents finish the course less exhausted.