Parent-implemented intervention has been found to be an effective form of intervention (Kaiser & Roberts 2011). Across 18 studies, significant effects were found with receptive vocabulary (g=0.38) and expressive morpho-syntax (g=.082) when a parent based intervention was used.

Kaiser and Roberts emphasize the importance of parents' responses to their children to support and shape their language development, as it is more difficult for children with a language delay to gain the language skills of their peers.  

Their results conclude that parent implementation can result in positive effects in their child’s language skills. In fact, children of parents who received training spoke on average 53 more words than the children of parents who did not receive training. 

Telepractice can support families in scheduling, cost, and overall communication skills. This triadic approach creates flexible and evidence based support for many families in need for specialized services. Blaiser, Behl, Callow-Heusser, and White (2013) found an increase in parent engagement as well as significantly higher (p=.03) expressive language skills in their telepractice group than the in-person group. Telepractice encourages providers to facilitate coaching of parents ultimately improving caregivers ability to aid in their child's development.

While telepractice has many benefits, perhaps the most interesting is the interventionist's ability to provide more appropriate and effective coaching behaviors in a telepractice condition. 

There is a need for further construction of a framework for professionals to use when coaching parents in early intervention. By incorporating parent training and coaching into service delivery, speech language pathologists can more easily use telepractice as a means for providing services to children with communication disorders (Snodgrass et al. 2016). 

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Friedman, Woods, and Salisbury (2012) capitalize on the importance of coaching in early intervention and how essential it is that providers gain specific skills in collaboration and coaching of parents. Friedman et al. found was that a common barrier to utilzing coaching is due to the fact that providers are unsure of what behaviors constitute as coaching. This uncertainty and “how to” aspect leads to providers using direct intervention (provider-child) instead of a triadic approach (provider-child-parent). 

Kaiser and Roberts (2015) created the teach-model-coach-review approach as a guideline for professionals. 

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Using this approach, results concluded a significant increase in use of language facilitation strategies by parents (p<.01) and children's receptive language skills (p=.04) for the intervention group. Further, the results provided the assurance that those included in the intervention were less likely to meet a language delay criterion. To support this claim, it was found that 71% of the toddlers in the control were found to be delayed in language while those who received intervention was 51% delayed in comparison. While these results show positive change, this approach has yet to be used in telepractice. 

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Prior studies have found coaching behaviors in providers to be stronger when implemented through telepractice versus in person. The purpose of this study is to further contribute to the resources for interventionists to provide efficient, appropriate, and beneficial coaching strategies to parents with children in early intervention via telepractice to support both provider and parent. 

We hope that after completing this online training, as future professionals you will be prepared to take on clients in need of speech and language services via telepractice. Further, have piece of mind knowing that utilizing the teach-model-coach-review approach has evidence based support as you work with families in early intervention.