Abstract
Although behavioral interventions have been known to effectively reduce stereotypy in children with ASD, these types of interventions are not accessible to all families. In response to this issue, we evaluated the effects of the iSTIM, an iOS application designed to support parents in the reduction of stereotypy in their child with ASD. We used a series of AB designs to determine the effectiveness of the iSTIM on stereotypy using parents as behavior change agents. The use of iSTIM by the parents led to a reduction in stereotypy for six of seven participants. Our results suggest that the use of technology may be a cost effective and easily accessible method for parents to reduce stereotypy in their child with ASD.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was written in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the MS degree in Psychoeducation at the Université de Montréal by the first author. We thank Emily Heng and Camille Labrèche for their support with data collection, and Julien Canuel for his assistance with programming.
Funding
This research project was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (# 136895) and a salary award from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé (# 269462) to the second author.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data analysis was performed by Lydia Trudel under the supervision of Marc J. Lanovaz. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Lydia Trudel and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lydia Trudel and Isabelle Préfontaine declares that they have no conflict of interest. Marc J. Lanovaz declares that he owns the intellectual property rights for the iSTIM.
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All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.
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Parents provided informed consent for them and their child.
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Trudel, L., Lanovaz, M.J. & Préfontaine, I. Brief Report: Mobile Technology to Support Parents in Reducing Stereotypy. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 2550–2558 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04735-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04735-6