Overcoming Language Barriers between Interventionists and Immigrant Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study used a video prompting intervention to overcome language barriers between English-speaking trainers and Spanish-speaking immigrant parents of children with autism. Parents were taught instructional skills targeting independent dressing. A multiple baseline design across three families and a replication using an alternating treatments design with a fourth family were used to evaluate the effects of the intervention. All mothers reached mastery criterion and generalization of instructional skills was observed for three mothers, with treatment gains maintaining during follow-up. Improvement in independent dressing skills was observed for four children. Findings suggest that video prompting can be used to teach immigrant parents of children with autism who have limited English proficiency when there is a language mismatch between parents and trainers.