PiCs: Telepractice coaching for a parent of a child who is hard-of-hearing

ABSTRACT Services for families of young children with low-incidence disabilities (e.g. deaf/hard-of-hearing, DHH) are expensive to deliver and may not be available in all geographic regions. Parents of children who are DHH may be taught and coached to implement strategies to encourage communication. The purpose of this single-case multiple-baseline design study was to implement and assess telepractice teaching and coaching of a parent whose child is hard-of-hearing. The parent was taught to implement naturalistic teaching strategies for communication using the Parent-implemented Communication Strategies (PiCS) protocols (Meadan, H., Angell, M. E., Stoner, J. B., & Daczewitz, M. E. (2014). Parent-implemented social-pragmatic communication intervention: A pilot study. Focus on Autism and other Developmental Disabilities, 29, 1–16. doi:10.1177/1088357613517504). Results varied across strategies, and the parent expressed satisfaction with the goals, procedures, and outcomes of the intervention. Implications include recommendations for practitioners and researchers.