Abstract
Coaching has been identified as a best practice for early intervention (EI) services provided through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C. The current study describes the establishment and progress of a research-relationship partnership to deliver coaching via telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Community-based EI providers implemented 9-weeks of telehealth coaching and evaluated the extent to which child and caregiver outcomes differed between families that had previously received in-person services versus telehealth only. Four EI providers completed the intervention with n=17 families of children aged 6-34 months during the pandemic (April-August 2020). We used the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) to collect outcomes on caregiver identified goals; we used Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests to examine pre- to post-intervention data. Results showed significant improvements in parent satisfaction, child performance, and goal attainment (all p<.01). Findings suggest that telehealth coaching procedures implemented by community-based EI providers resulted in improvements in caregiver identified goals for young children.
Highlights
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth rapidly expanded as a service delivery model across state early intervention (EI) systems
Data on the efficacy of coaching delivered via telehealth for families of young children with neurodevelopmental conditions has largely been based in research studies with strict interventionist training and participants who are interested in research (e.g., Ciupe & Salisbury, 2020), potentially reducing the generalizability of findings
While telehealth was used as a model for EI services in some states prior to the pandemic, few studies have examined how coaching via telehealth may be translated into practice using research-practice partnerships (RPPs)
Summary
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth rapidly expanded as a service delivery model across state early intervention (EI) systems. Data on the efficacy of coaching delivered via telehealth for families of young children with neurodevelopmental conditions has largely been based in research studies with strict interventionist training and participants who are interested in research (e.g., Ciupe & Salisbury, 2020), potentially reducing the generalizability of findings. The number of effective interventions for children with disabilities far outweighs the number of interventions used in practice, and it often takes an average of 17 years before evidence-based practices are used in practice (Morris et al, 2011) To reduce this gap, it is critical to develop research-practice partnerships (RPPs) in the community to more rapidly increase the uptake of interventions. While telehealth was used as a model for EI services in some states prior to the pandemic, few studies have examined how coaching via telehealth may be translated into practice using RPPs
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