Caregiver Training Via Telehealth on Behavioral Procedures: A Systematic Review

J Behav Educ. 2020 Jun;29(2):246-281. doi: 10.1007/s10864-020-09381-7. Epub 2020 Apr 2.

Abstract

Telehealth has been utilized to provide behavioral services to families with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other disabilities. This systematic review provides an update on current research pertaining to the use of telehealth to provide behavior analytic-based services and train caregivers in implementing behavioral procedures. This review also describes information on reported training components and caregivers' procedural fidelity. Empirical studies were collected from five databases. Overall, the studies provide evidence of the utility of telehealth as a service delivery model for providing behavior analytic-based services and for training caregivers to implement behavioral assessments and procedures. The authors discuss potential considerations for developing training packages and training caregivers via telehealth. Future research should use experimental methods to determine effective components for training individuals via telehealth to use behavioral procedures with good fidelity as well as to detect other factors that may influence procedural fidelity.

Keywords: Applied behavior analysis; Autism spectrum disorder; Developmental disability; Parent training; Telehealth.