# Exploring and Developing Implementation Strategies to Support Parent Coaching

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2020 · $243,000

## Abstract

Program Director/Principal Investigator (Last, First, Middle): Pellecchia, Melanie & Mandell, David Samuel
PROJECT SUMMARY
The purpose of this R21 is to develop a toolkit of implementation strategies that increase early intervention (EI)
providers' use of parent coaching for families of young children with or at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Many evidence-based parent-mediated interventions have been developed in recent years and share interven-
tion components designed to 1) treat the symptoms of ASD, and 2) coach parents in the use of these treatments.
While the intervention components used to treat children with ASD have received considerable attention with
regard to their implementation in community settings, the strategies used to coach parents have not. Coaching
is the active mechanism through which therapists change parent behavior, but comprises an understudied set
of targets for implementation. Preliminary evidence shows that community-based EI providers spend most of
their time working directly with the child, rather than coaching parents, despite calls from EI leaders to move from
a model of direct service to one that incorporates coaching parents. Small studies suggest that this implementa-
tion gap relates to providers' poor self-efficacy, conflicting pedagogical attitudes, and lack of clarity regarding
expectations about using parent coaching. Organizational and systemic barriers also may inhibit the use of par-
ent coaching by affecting clinicians' beliefs about its use or creating barriers that stop clinicians from acting on
their intentions to coach parents. Implementation strategies that address barriers related to both psychological
and organizational variables affecting the use of parent coaching are most likely to be effective. Using commu-
nity-partnered participatory research (CPPR) methods offers a novel approach to developing strategies to sup-
port the use of parent coaching. A new initiative in Philadelphia's EI system, through which EI providers will be
trained in Project ImPACT, an evidence-based, parent-mediated treatment for young children with ASD, presents
a rare opportunity to develop and pilot test these implementation strategies. Through this study, we will measure
psychological and organizational constructs that influence EI providers' use of parent coaching through direct
observations, quantitative surveys, and qualitative interviews. We then will partner with community stakeholders
to iteratively develop and test implementation strategies to increase EI providers' use of parent coaching. We
will rely on our recently funded ALACRITY center grant to support the use of innovative methods to rapidly
develop and pilot test these implementation strategies. Successful completion of this project will result in a novel,
easy-to-use toolkit of implementation strategies to help EI providers coach parents of children with ASD. These
activities will lay the foundation for an R01 to evaluate the implementation ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9979976
- **Project number:** 5R21MH118489-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** David S Mandell
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $243,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-17 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9979976

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9979976, Exploring and Developing Implementation Strategies to Support Parent Coaching (5R21MH118489-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9979976. Licensed CC0.

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