Authors: Marco Esposito, Maria Teresa Dipierro, Federica Mondani, Giovanna Gerardi, Bruna Monopoli, Carmelo Felicetti, Francesco Forieri, Monica Mazza, Marco Valenti.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a chronic neurodevelopmental condition of early childhood onset characterized by social communication deficits, restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. ASD affects an estimated 6–14 per 1000 children and is a major public health challenge. Availability of empirically supported behavioral interventions, however is scarce. One of the barriers to implementation of empirically supported interventions is the lack of trained specialists especially in underserved areas. The limited access to effective behavioral treatment often results in long delays and additional travel costs for families to obtain services from centers with appropriate expertise. Telehealth (also known as telepractice or telemedicine) uses communication technologies (e.g., computer-based videoconferencing) that allow specialists to consult or deliver services in real-time over a geographical distance. Increasing the availability of empirically-supported, time-limited and cost-effective interventions for children with ASD through the use of telehealth may be a way to close the gap between service demand and availability in rural and underserved areas. The application of these technologies to deliver health services across a range of conditions is growing at a rapid pace, with services increasingly migrating from hospitals and satellite clinics to the home and mobile devices. The aim of the current research is to explore the Evidence-Based teaching strategies and clinical models applied to enhance social and personal skills of children with ASD and to develop and to assess the effectiveness of a multilingual telehealth system able to support the implementation of parent and staff mediated interventions in comparison to early standard behavioral programs.
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