The Effects of Virtual Caregiver Coaching in Antigua & Barbuda on the Implementation of EMT Language Support Strategies in Naturalistic Environments
Three live Zoom coaching sessions per week reliably push caregivers to use EMT language strategies at home.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Peters and her team coached caregivers in Antigua & Barbuda through a computer screen.
They met three times a week to teach Enhanced Milieu Teaching, or EMT, language tricks.
The study used a multiple-baseline design to see if caregivers used the tricks more often at home.
What they found
Caregivers started using EMT language support strategies more after the first week of Zoom coaching.
The child with language impairment heard more language models during everyday play and routines.
How this fits with other research
Barkaia et al. (2017) did the same thing earlier, but they coached therapists in Georgia from Virginia.
Gevarter et al. (2021) also got good parent gains with only one training plus two calls, showing brief doses can work.
Dai et al. (2023) looks like a clash: their online parent course lifted parent knowledge yet child social-communication stayed flat.
The difference is coaching style: Peters gave live feedback three times a week, while Dai used self-paced lessons with no live coach.
Why it matters
You can copy this model anywhere internet reaches.
Schedule three short Zoom sessions each week, watch the caregiver play, give immediate tips, and watch strategy use climb.
No travel, no big budget, just a laptop and a headset.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This single-case multiple baseline design investigation set out to determine the effectiveness of using a telepractice service delivery model to coach caregivers in Antigua & Barbuda in the use of Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) language support strategies with a child with language impairment. A slightly modified version of the Teach-Model-Coach-Review (TMCR) method was used during virtual instruction to train a caregiver on the language support strategies of environmental arrangement, matched turns, expansions, and time delay with milieu prompting. The caregiver attended sessions three times a week for up to 45 minutes for four weeks. The results of this study indicated a positive relationship between the intervention and caregiver use of strategies. The caregiver demonstrated increased responsiveness to the child's communication attempts and exhibited the use of language support strategies across activities. This study suggests that telepractice can be an effective service delivery model for providing coaching to caregivers.
International Journal of Telerehabilitation, 2023 · doi:10.5195/ijt.2023.6586