Telehealth Evaluation of Development for Infants and Parent Coaching Support

In this study, we will assess infants’ communication, play, and learning skills. We will gather information about how to make telehealth easier for
families to use. Some families will be invited to participate in additional telehealth sessions working with a parent coach to learn strategies to support their baby’s development.

We are recruiting families who:
▪ Have infants who are 6-12 months old.
▪ Have concerns about their infants’ social interactions or how they
communicate.
▪ Are willing and able to complete online forms.

Eligible families who decide to enroll will:
▪ Complete online forms about their infant and about the telehealth
visits
▪ Participate in telehealth visits with a member of the study team and
their infant.
– Approximately 5 visits over 3 years.
-Each telehealth visit lasts about 1 hour and involves
activities like bubbles, songs, and playing with toys.
-Toys and materials for the activities are provided.
▪ Parent coaching includes 12 additional telehealth visits.
▪ All study visits are telehealth, no travel required.

We know that many families have concerns about their babies’ development or wonder if they are developing differently than their peers. Right now, we don’t have very good tools to tell whether these differences might be related to autism, developmental delays, or are likely to resolve on their own. This means that many families are told to ‘wait and see.’ Often families wait months or even years for specialized evaluations and services. We hope that by closely following many infants with these kinds of early concerns we can help identify when early behavioral differences indicate a child may be more or less likely to have particular outcomes. This will help us develop better supports for families during this early period before they may have received a specific formal diagnosis.