Effectiveness of a Therapist-Managed Video-Modeling Smartphone Application for Self-Care Training for Children With Autism and Their Parents: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
A BCBA-run phone app teaches self-care skills to 5-12-year-olds with autism just as well as sitting with them live.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Zohrabi et al. (2025) built a phone app that shows short videos of kids brushing teeth, washing hands, and getting dressed.
A BCBA assigned each family new videos every week and checked in by video call.
Families were split into two groups: app-only or live therapist modeling. Kids were 5-12 years old with autism.
What they found
Children in both groups learned the self-care tasks equally well.
Parents liked the app and used it almost every day.
Parent stress and family life did not change in either group.
How this fits with other research
EGranieri et al. (2020) pooled 18 trials and found tech social-skills lessons work as well as face-to-face ones. Samane’s result matches that pattern, but for daily living skills instead of social skills.
Byra et al. (2018) taught hygiene in a clinic with real props and reached the same skill gains. The new study shows a phone can give the same boost without the drive.
de Leonardis et al. (2025) built a parent-training app for preschoolers based on WHO lessons. Samane moves the idea upstream to school-age kids and adds video modeling instead of parent lessons.
Why it matters
You can swap one live session each week for a short video clip and still see progress. This frees you to supervise more families at once. Try assigning a two-minute tooth-brushing clip tonight and ask parents to send back a five-second video of the child finishing the task.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
PURPOSE: This study examined the effectiveness of a therapist-managed smartphone application using video modeling to teach self-care skills to children with autism, compared with live modeling, while providing parents with remote therapist support. METHODS: In this randomized controlled trial, thirty-one children with ASD (aged 5-12 years) were randomly assigned to an intervention group (video modeling via smartphone; n = 16) or a comparison group (live modeling; n = 15). Outcome measures included the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, Goal Attainment Scaling, and Activities of Daily Living Inventory for Children with Disabilities, Family Functioning Questionnaire in Rehabilitation, and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale. Assessments were conducted at baseline, one-month post-intervention, and one-month follow-up, and data were analyzed using generalized estimating equations. RESULTS: The intervention group demonstrated significant improvements in self-care-related outcome measure scores (p < .05). No significant differences were found in Family Functioning Questionnaire in Rehabilitation or Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale scores. CONCLUSION: The therapist-managed video modeling application effectively enhanced self-care performance in children with ASD and offered a family-centered, time-efficient approach for remote intervention.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.2196/11500