This project will examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of using a smartphone app-based parent training program focused on early autism intervention strategies.
Despite scientific advances in treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), most families across the United States do not have access to high quality autism services, let alone the best autism treatment models available. There are a number of reasons for this concerning reality, including the limited number of trained autism clinicians around the country, the rising cost of services, geographic distance from autism service providers, and difficulties in being able to effectively and efficiently train a large number of people in the latest treatment models. This proposed project focuses on the Department of Defense Autism Research Program - Clinical Translational Research Award Area of Interests focused on Dissemination/Implementation of Clinically Validated Interventions and Behavioral Therapies for ASD Core Symptoms. These areas focus on effective strategies for taking what works (in this case, highly effective autism treatments shown to improve social communication and motivation in children with autism) and spreading or distributing these treatments so that they can benefit a much larger portion of the population. This is important, because a highly effective treatment is of little use if only people in a few areas can benefit from its effect, while the rest of the nation continues to use outdated, less effective strategies. To accomplish the goal of distributing a highly effective intervention to the general public, this proposed study will take advantage of the wide-spread use of smartphones nationwide. This study proposes to develop and evaluate smartphone apps as a way to train parents of young children with ASD in an autism treatment model known as Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT). Families will be recruited nationwide to participate in this trial. Pivotal Response Treatment is a well-known, scientifically supported treatment that focuses on using child motivation, play-based lessons, and parent involvement to target the language skills and social engagement of children with ASD. The core smartphone app will offer eight interactive lessons in PRT, consisting of video examples, slides, and brief quizzes. After each lesson, parents will be asked to record a brief video of themselves using PRT with their child, which is submitted within the app to the research team so that they can monitor their mastery of the strategies over time. The investigators will also ask parents to complete autism-related and developmental surveys before and after participation so that the research team can monitor how their child is improving. Ultimately, the objective of this trial is to develop and test smartphone apps to deliver a highly effective autism intervention to families nationwide. The use of this technology will ensure that families can access gold standard autism treatment regardless of their geographic location, work schedules, or financial background. If successful, the investigators plan to conduct an even larger nationwide study and ultimately make the app available in smartphone app stores so that families everywhere can train themselves in this treatment approach.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
TRIPLE
Enrollment
48
Parents are trained in Pivotal Response Treatment, Pivotal Response Treatment is a well-known, scientifically supported treatment that focuses on using child motivation, play-based lessons, and parent involvement to target the language skills and social engagement of children with autism. The core smartphone app will offer eight interactive lessons in PRT, consisting of video examples, slides, and brief quizzes.
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California, United States
Change from Baseline in Parent Fidelity of Implementation of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) during Behaviorally Coded Parent-Child Intervention Videos at 8 weeks, 16 weeks
Parent participants will record and submit a five-minute video of themselves using the PRT intervention strategies with their child using the clinical trial's smartphone app. Trained research assistants will behaviorally score each video using computer-based behavioral coding software (Noldus Observer XT) on a trial-by-trial basis for the presence or absence of each PRT intervention component, which include the use of: child choice, child attention, clear opportunities, contingent reinforcement, reinforcement of child response attempts, a balance of maintenance and acquisition tasks, and task variation. Total uses of these components will be divided by total uses + absences of these components to yield a percentage. The mean percentage of all components will be used as the primary outcome, with a range of 0% to 100% use of the PRT components.
Time frame: Baseline, 8 weeks (intervention completion), 16 weeks (follow-up)
Change from Baseline in Frequency of Child Vocalizations/Word Use during Behaviorally Coded Parent-Child Intervention Videos at 8 weeks, 16 weeks.
Parent participants will record and submit a five-minute video of themselves using the PRT intervention strategies with their child using the clinical trial's smartphone app. Trained research assistants will behaviorally score each video using computer-based behavioral coding software (Noldus Observer XT) on a continuous basis for the total frequency of child vocalizations and word use (both prompted and unprompted/spontaneous). The minimum number of vocalizations/words is 0 (no vocalizations or spoken words) and there is technically no maximum (although this is limited by the 5-minute duration of the video probe).
Time frame: Baseline, 8 weeks (intervention completion), 16 weeks (follow-up)
Change from Baseline in Percentage of Child Positive Affect during Behaviorally Coded Parent-Child Intervention Videos at 8 weeks, 16 weeks.
Parent participants will record and submit a five-minute video of themselves using the PRT intervention strategies with their child using the clinical trial's smartphone app. Trained research assistants will behaviorally score each video using computer-based behavioral coding software (Noldus Observer XT) on a continuous basis for the total duration of child positive affect (i.e. directed positive facial expressions - observable smiling and laughter). The minimum percentage is 0% (no positive affect) and the maximum is 100% (constant presence of positive affect).
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Time frame: Baseline, 8 weeks (intervention completion), 16 weeks (follow-up)
Change from Baseline in MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI), Level I Short Form (Total Score) at 16 weeks
The MacArthur-Bates CDI (Fenson et al., 2000) is a caregiver-reported measure of child expressive vocabulary use. Parents will complete a digital version of the CDI to obtain information on reported word usage and understanding.
Time frame: Baseline, 16 weeks (follow-up)
Change from Baseline in Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Third Edition (Standard Score on Communication Domain) at 16 weeks
The Vineland-III (Sparrow et al., 2016) is a caregiver-completed measure of adaptive functioning in children. Parents will complete a digital version of the Communication Domain of the Vineland-III Parent/Caregiver Rating Form. Item responses are converted to Standard Scores with a mean of 100 and a Standard Deviation of 15.
Time frame: Baseline, 16 weeks (follow-up)
Change from Baseline in Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Third Edition (Standard Score on Socialization Domain) at 16 weeks
The Vineland-III (Sparrow et al., 2016) is a caregiver-completed measure of adaptive functioning in children. Parents will complete a digital version of the Socialization Domain of the Vineland-III Parent/Caregiver Rating Form. Item responses are converted to Standard Scores with a mean of 100 and a Standard Deviation of 15.
Time frame: Baseline, 16 weeks (follow-up)
Change from Baseline in Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition (SRS-2; Total T-Score) at 16 weeks
The SRS-2 (Constantino \& Gruber, 2007) is a caregiver-completed measure of a child's autism symptom severity. Parents will complete a digital version of the Toddler SRS-2. Item responses are converted to a SRS-2 T-score with a mean of 50 and a Standard Deviation of 10.
Time frame: Baseline, 16 weeks (follow-up)