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Mobile-Health to Enhance Parent-Mediated Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Vietnam: Process of Development and Lessons Learnt
There is some evidence for the effectiveness of parent-mediated intervention model, in which parents can learn the necessary skills to deliver therapies for their children. This is particularly important in settings where there is a dearth of qualified early childhood interventionists and allied health therapists such as in low and middle-income countries. With the fast development of the internet and mobile phone uptake, using m-health to improve parents’ knowledge and skills is considered as having the potential to bridge the disparity of services.
Objectives:
This presentation will present the process of developing a web-based platform (a365.vn, and responsive to mobile devices) to support Vietnamese parents to undertake early intervention for their children at home, as well as lessons learnt from piloting this model.
Methods:
Data for this presentation came from project reports, back-end data of web-based platform, interviews with parents during users testing, monitoring and evaluation, and reflections within research team.
Results:
With financial support from Grand Challenges Canada, a365.vn has been developed and improved through several steps (formative research, user’s testing, content development) and with the involvement of professionals from different disciplines and especially parents (end-users). A365 provides key strategies for parents to do intervention with their children, modeling videos to support parents to teach their children specific skills, and short questionnaires for parents monitoring progress of their children. By end of September 2016, forty one modeling videos have been made available for parents to use with a log-in account and password protection; 425 care givers from 47 provinces (out of 63 provinces in Vietnam) used a365 for intervention, especially a number of users from locations where limited services are available for children with ASD. Parents considered this web-based platform as a good resource to build their capacity in teaching their children, and enhance their children skills and ability. However, a number of parents did not consider themselves capable of providing intervention and found some challenges when use a365. They also expressed their needs of having more modeling videos, instruction, and coaching.
Conclusions:
M-health is potential for increasing access to services for children with ASD. It is an evolutional process and requires strong engagement of end-users and multi-disciplinary collaboration in order to be a friendly and effective product for users. Coaching and motivating parents is important.