Preliminary findings of a telehealth approach to parent training in autism.

Eight families tried parent training through a computer. They got live video calls plus a website with lessons.

Kids had autism. Parents learned to boost talking and shared looking. No one had to drive to a clinic.

Parents used the new skills. Kids spoke more and looked at faces longer.

The team called the results good enough to test again with more families.

Ingersoll et al. (2016) ran a small RCT and beat the pilot. They added a live coach and saw bigger gains in parent fidelity and child social skills.

Hao et al. (2021) went head-to-head: telehealth matched in-person parent training for language gains. That tells us the screen itself is not a barrier.

Yi et al. (2021) looked inside real-world public sessions and found low coaching fidelity. Their audit warns us that lab success can melt once the same model hits busy public clinics.

You can start parent coaching today without waiting for office space. Use secure video plus a shared site for handouts and short clips. Track parent fidelity each week; if it stalls, add live in-vivo feedback just like Brooke did. Watch for drift once the model leaves your pilot caseload—Yi shows us real systems need staff booster training.