ENabling VISions and Growing Expectations (ENVISAGE): Parent reviewers' perspectives of a co-designed program to support parents raising a child with an early-onset neurodevelopmental disability.
Parents who helped re-design the ENVISAGE online workshops say the final version is clear, useful, and gives them hope.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Miller et al. (2022) asked parents to review an online workshop series called ENVISAGE. The workshops help families who have young children with any early-onset neurodisability.
Parents watched recorded lessons and live Zoom talks. Then they filled out surveys and joined focus groups. They told the team what to keep, cut, or change before the pilot launch.
What they found
Parents said the content was easy to grasp and felt made for them. Words like “empowering” and “hopeful” came up often.
The team used these notes to tighten scripts, add captions, and swap jargon for plain language. The revised course is now ready for a pilot test.
How this fits with other research
Dai et al. (2021) and Dai et al. (2023) ran similar online parent courses for autism. All three studies show the same pattern: parents like learning on a screen and finish most modules.
Pickard et al. (2019) did an earlier RCT that proved co-design cuts perceived barriers. ENVISAGE follows that playbook by letting parents edit the course before it goes live.
Wetherby et al. (2018) is the outlier: their web-coached parents produced measurable child gains in only three months. ENVISAGE did not look at child outcomes yet, so the papers do not truly clash—they simply ask different questions.
Why it matters
If you run parent training, invite families to critique the draft slides. A 30-minute parent focus group can spot confusing terms that you miss. Swap those terms for everyday words and add real-life examples. The revised course will feel owned by families, and uptake is likely to rise when you roll it out.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AIMS: This study reports parents' perspectives of, ENVISAGE: ENabling VISions And Growing Expectations. ENVISAGE - co-designed by parents and researchers - is an early intervention program for parents raising children with neurodisability. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Using an integrated Knowledge Translation approach, this feasibility study explored parents' perspectives of the comprehensibility, acceptability, and usability of ENVISAGE workshops. Participants were Australian and Canadian parents of children with neurodisabilities, ≥12 months post-diagnosis, who independently reviewed ENVISAGE workshops using an online learning platform. Parents completed study-specific 5-point Likert-scaled surveys about individual workshops. Following this, qualitative interviews about their perceptions of ENVISAGE were conducted. Survey data were analysed descriptively, and interviews analysed inductively using interpretive description. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Fifteen parents completed surveys, of whom 11 participated in interviews. Workshops were reported to be understandable, relevant, and meaningful to families. ENVISAGE was judged to empower parents through enhancing knowledge and skills to communicate, collaborate and connect with others. Pragmatic recommendations were offered to improve accessibility of ENVISAGE. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: ENVISAGE workshops address key issues and concerns of parents of children with neurodisability in a way that was perceived as empowering. Involving parents as reviewers enabled refinement of the workshops prior to the pilot study.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2022 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2021.104150