Intercontinental telehealth coaching of therapists to improve verbalizations by children with autism
Live Zoom feedback from another continent can sharpen therapist techniques and boost child verbal behavior without anyone boarding a plane.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Coaches in Virginia used Zoom to train therapists in Tbilisi, Georgia. The therapists worked with children with autism who had few words.
The team used a multiple-baseline design. They watched videos of each therapist and gave feedback in real time.
What they found
Therapists started using clearer commands and more praise. The children echoed more sounds and asked for things more often.
All gains happened while the coaches sat 5,800 miles away. No one flew anywhere.
How this fits with other research
Peters et al. (2023) later showed the same setup works for parents in the Caribbean. Kremkow et al. (2022) pushed the idea further in Mongolia by training one parent to coach other parents, creating a local cascade.
Wetherby et al. (2018) and Perez et al. (2015) had already proven parents can run ABA tactics at home through a screen. Barkaia et al. (2017) simply proved therapists can be the remote learners too.
Together these papers form a line: tele-coaching travels well across oceans, cultures, and roles.
Why it matters
You no longer need to choose between flying a consultant in or leaving staff untrained. A laptop, a webcam, and a weekly Zoom slot can upgrade therapist skills and child language at the same time. Try picking one staff member, record five minutes of their session, and review it together online next week.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examined the effects of intercontinental telehealth coaching on the mastery of therapists' skills and improvements in verbalizations by children with autism, testing whether telehealth can be a solution for underserved communities in developing countries such as Georgia-Sakartvelo in Eastern Europe. Three therapists delivering and three children with autism receiving early-intervention services from the nongovernmental organization Children of Georgia in Tbilisi participated. Experimenters provided coaching from Virginia, USA to therapists in Georgia-Sakartvelo. Observers in Georgia-Sakartvelo and in Virginia conducted the behavioral observations. We used inexpensive communications technology to provide the coaching and a multiple-baseline design across participants to evaluate the effects of the intervention. Therapists demonstrated improvements in two classes of behaviors: correct command sequences and positive consequences. The children demonstrated improvements with echoics and mands. The study demonstrated that telehealth can be a good model for delivering early-intervention services to children with autism in underserved and distant regions of the world.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2017 · doi:10.1002/jaba.391