Remote vs. In-person Schooling during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Internalizing Symptoms among Children on the Autism Spectrum.

Courreges et al. (2023) asked parents of high-school-age youth with autism what happened to services during the first year of COVID-19. They used open-ended interviews so families could tell the full story in their own words. The team focused on kids about to leave school, a group that already faces big service gaps.

Parents said no child gained any new therapy, class, or support after March 2020. Instead, many lost sessions or had to pay out of pocket to keep the help they had. Remote school often meant no speech, no OT, and no aide, even when the IEP promised them.

Martin et al. (2023) looks at odds with this picture. They showed 14 parents learned behavioral skills by Zoom and cut their kids’ problem behavior during the same period. The gap: Martin offered a ready telehealth program, while Audrey’s families were simply told services stopped. Neale et al. (2022) add the wider view—only 8 % of autism trials shut down, and most were drug studies, not day-to-day therapy. Together the three papers show services could keep going, but schools and clinics rarely made the switch. Pellicano et al. (2022) echo the mental toll, recording deep stress in autistic people of all ages when face-to-face support vanished.

If another crisis hits, you can’t assume schools will pivot online. Have a back-up telehealth vendor list ready now. Share parent-training log-ins like those in Martin et al. so families can start immediately. And screen caregiver stress at every contact—Faught et al. (2021) found these parents already run twice the normal distress rate even without a pandemic.