• Parents of children with developmental delay and behavioral problems face many obstacles to care, including financial challenges, shortages of mental health clinicians, fear of stigma, transportation and more. A new study shows a telehealth program can be an effective strategy to overcome these barriers.
• Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT), considered a gold-standard treatment, addresses associated behavior issues for children with developmental delay by connecting caregivers to therapists.
• The study found a telehealth version of PCIT led to fewer behavior problems and improvements in children's ability to follow caregivers' directions and instructions.
Telehealth programs for parents can improve the behavioral problems of children with developmental delay, according to new research.
Psychology Professor Daniel M. Bagner and his team at FIU's Center for Children and Families led the first study of its kind, published in JAMA Pediatrics, to investigate how using videoconferencing to provide live coaching of caregiver-child interactions impacted children with developmental delay. They found the telehealth program led to fewer child behavior problems, like aggression, as well as improvements in the children's ability to follow their caregivers' directions and instructions — better preparing them for kindergarten.
"Even with the increase in telehealth mental health services during the pandemic, there's very little scientific evidence that this type of treatment works, especially for families with young children with developmental delay," Bagner said. "Our findings show the benefits of telehealth, and the promise it can have in expanding the service and care, especially for underserved families and children at risk for more severe problems later in life."
