Peer Experiences of Military Spouses with Children with Autism in a Distance Peer Mentoring Program: A Pilot Study.

Kremkow et al. (2022) ran a small pilot. They paired military spouses who have kids with autism. Each spouse met a trained peer mentor online before an upcoming move.

The team asked: Can online peer support feel helpful and doable during a PCS shuffle? They tracked ease of use, satisfaction, and early stress signals.

Spouses said the video chats were easy to join and felt useful. They liked talking with someone who had lived through the same moves.

Early notes showed lower stress and faster hook-ups with new base services. The study calls online peer mentorship feasible and acceptable.

Lotfizadeh et al. (2020) tested the same program, but they trained the mentors first. Their mentors gained knowledge and confidence, setting the stage for this 2022 mentee study.

M et al. (2015, 2016) and Farley et al. (2022) show the problem: every move brings long ABA wait-lists and lost services. The new study offers peer mentoring as a low-cost bridge while families sit on those lists.

Agiovlasitis et al. (2025) also tried online caregiver coaching, but for Indian infants. Both studies prove telehealth reaches far-flung families, yet the military pilot adds the twist of peer-to-peer support instead of professional coaching.

You can copy this model today. Build a short mentor-training loop (see D et al. 2020), then match each new spouse with a seasoned one. A 30-minute video chat before orders drop can cut panic and keep therapy gaps short.