Abstract
Purpose: Naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBIs) have dem-onstrated initial promise in facilitating social communication development for autistic toddlers, but their highly structured protocols may be a barrier toward their use by early intervention (EI) providers who must individualize intervention according to family-centered principles. This study aimed to characterize the extent to which EI speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use NDBI strategies, and the range of skills and behaviors addressed during their EI sessions, to contextualize the role of NDBIs within the scope of needs of families with autistic children in EI. Method: This observational study included 25 families with an autistic toddler and their EI SLP. One home-based session was recorded for each family, and an observational measure was used to describe SLPs’ NDBI strategy use. Qualitative content analyses were also used to characterize the strategies SLPs rec-ommended to families, and the child skills and behaviors they discussed. Results: SLPs did not implement NDBI strategies with high quality, but they implemented developmental NDBI strategies with significantly higher quality than behavioral NDBI strategies. SLPs discussed many strategies and skills across disciplines within the session. Conclusions: SLPs may require further training to implement NDBI strategies, but given the breadth and depth of skills addressed during sessions, researchers should investigate and report on the impact of NDBIs on a wider range of communication skills and developmental domains. This will facilitate clinical decision making and make these interventions better aligned with family-centered EI principles. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21834480.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 439-451 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | American journal of speech-language pathology |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Funding
This study was supported by a grant awarded to Megan Roberts by the National Institutes of Health (R01DC014709). The authors would like to thank Katie Zanzinger, Marie Bloem, Amy Bahr, and the other staff and clinicians at the Early Intervention Research Group for their assistance with data collection and coding. They would also like to thank the participating families and speech-language pathologists for their time and commitment. All authors are White women and licensed speech-language pathologists with experience in early intervention and have been formally trained to implement and/or evaluate the fidelity of naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions programs. At the time of publication, Authors 1 and 2 are research doctoral students in communication sciences and disorders, Author 3 has a clinical doctorate in speech-language pathology and works in an academic medical center, and Author 4 has a PhD in Special Education and is the principal investigator of a lab investigating early interventions for children with communication disorders.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Otorhinolaryngology
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Linguistics and Language
- Speech and Hearing