Secondary Analysis of a Brief Parent-Implemented NDBI on Activity-Engaged Triadic Interactions Within Mother-Child Dyads.
Brief telehealth parent-NDBI lifts child language yet fails to spark measurable shared toy play.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ousley and team asked: can a short telehealth parent-NDBI boost three-way play between mom, child, and a toy? They gave four moms two hours of Zoom coaching plus video feedback. Moms practiced at home for four weeks.
Researchers filmed play sessions and counted triadic interactions. These are moments when mom, child, and toy all share attention. They used a single-case design to look for clear change.
What they found
Child talking went up, but triadic play stayed flat. No clear link appeared between the coaching and shared toy play. The team says the skill may need smaller, step-by-step teaching.
How this fits with other research
Gerow et al. (2021) also used telehealth parent coaching and saw big daily-living gains. Same method, different target. Their success shows the tech works when the skill is easy to score.
Simacek et al. (2020) reviewed 22 telehealth parent studies. Most saw social-communication gains, but the review warns that measures vary widely. Ousley’s null result fits that warning.
Cunningham (2012) flagged the core problem: we still lack a gold-standard way to track early social give-and-take. Ousley’s flat data echo that measurement gap.
Why it matters
You can keep using brief Zoom coaching to grow child language, but don’t expect automatic gains in shared toy play. Break triadic skills into bite-sized steps and pick a simple tally tool. Film five-minute clips, score mom-child-toy looks on a paper sheet, and praise each tiny success. Future studies may show which micro-skills need teaching first.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Family-implemented interventions are evidence-based practices used to support a range of developmental outcomes, including social communication. Social communication is a broad construct that encompasses a variety of skills, from foundational abilities such as joint attention (i.e., two people attending to the same object or event) to more advanced behaviors like triadic interactions (i.e., responding to or initiating conversation that involves reciprocal interactions). In a previous study, we examined the effects of a brief, parent-implemented Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI), delivered over telepractice with video feedback coaching. The intervention resulted in increased strategy use by all mothers and the frequency of communication for three young children. In the current study, we conducted a secondary analysis of those data to explore whether the communication-focused intervention produced a collateral effect on activity-engaged triadic interactions (i.e., mother–child–mother or child–mother–child exchanges while simultaneously engaging in a joint activity). Although a functional relation was not established, critical theoretical implications are posed. These findings highlight the need for future research to break apart complex skills into subskills to detect any subtle changes in child outcomes. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Behavioral Sciences, 2026 · doi:10.3390/bs16010147