Developing and Enhancing Adherence to a Telehealth ABA Parent Training Curriculum for Caregivers of Children with Autism

The current COVID-19 pandemic poses unique challenges to the delivery of ABA services and there has been a growing demand for evidence-based practices on how to develop a telehealth ABA service model. The current paper provides a detailed technological guide on how to develop a telehealth ABA parent training curriculum. Our model also includes a series of brief Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) protocols to enhance parental adherence. We provide the details for replicating our telehealth model, and also demonstrate its effectiveness. To begin, a step-by-step guide on how to develop this curriculum is presented, as well as protocols used in a 60-day telehealth ABA parent training program. Afterwards we describe a randomized controlled trial design to examine the effectiveness of this protocol. Thirteen families from the southern Illinois region participated in the curriculum before the COVID-19 outbreak. Obtained data indicated training was effective to teach skills, and parents with supplemental ACT material made significantly more progress than those in the control group, t(11) = 2.36, p = .044. Half-way through the training, the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred, and parents in the ACT group were more likely to continue the program while parents in the control group were significantly more likely to postpone their participation, χ2 = 6.96, p = .008. Social validity measures indicated that parents rated the curriculum favorably. Limitations and suggestions for practitioners are discussed.