The potential for telehealth to help with prescriptions, rehabilitation programs and other care-related issues excites many within the industry.

Now, a pilot study at Michigan State University in East Lansing used an online program to help parents of children with autism improve their child’s social communication.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, the study consisted of 12 weekly self-directed online courses that practiced intervention techniques. Half the parents also received biweekly video coaching sessions from therapists.

Children in both groups improved social communication skills, though the children of the parents who received additional therapy made greater gains.

“We now have good preliminary evidence that telehealth can increase access to parent training interventions for families of young children with autism spectrum disorder,” said Brooke Ingersoll, lead investigator of the study and MSU associate professor. “The ultimate goal is to use these types of methods to assist parents who live in rural and medically underserved areas, underrepresented groups, and even countries that don’t have the infrastructure for more intensive service delivery.”

Parents in both groups also noted decreased stress, which Ingersoll noted is crucial because parents of children with autism often experience higher stress than others.

Telehealth has proven a valuable resource in caring for chronic diseases and increasing access to health information in other fields.

“The general idea of stepped-care is that you can have low-intensity, low-cost service available to all families in the form of self-directed parent training, and then parents who need more support in learning the intervention techniques can be provided with coaching via videoconferencing,” the study said.

See the full report and an accompanying video from MSU here.