Parent-Implemented Telepractice Autism Intervention: A Case Study of Maintenance and Generalization

Area of Science:

• Intervention Research
• Developmental Psychology
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Assessing skill maintenance and generalization in intervention research is challenging.
• Previous work focused on teaching evidence-based communication strategies to parents of minimally verbal children with autism.
• A unique opportunity arose to study long-term skill transfer with a returning participant.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the long-term maintenance and generalization of communication strategies by a parent.
• To investigate skill transfer across different children with autism.
• To provide insights into telepractice intervention efficacy and refinement.

Main Methods:

• A longitudinal case study design was employed.
• Data were collected from a mother who participated in a previous study with her older son (Ali).
• New data were collected four years later with her younger son (Rami).

Main Results:

• The mother demonstrated sustained use of targeted communication strategies.
• She successfully generalized these skills to a different child (Rami).
• The case study provides rich data on long-term intervention outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Telepractice interventions can lead to durable skill maintenance and generalization in parents.
• Findings inform the refinement of intervention programming for autism.
• The study highlights the value of longitudinal case studies in intervention research.