Milieu Teaching-AV: Adaptation of Milieu Teaching That Encourages Looking to the Mouth

Summary

This project will look at Milieu Teaching (i.e., a language intervention) that encourages looking to audiovisual speech cues (Milieu Teaching-AV) for infants with autistic older siblings (Baby Sibs), who are highly likely be diagnosed with autism or developmental language disorder (DLD), compared to Milieu Teaching alone (Milieu Teaching-NoAV). This study will specifically look at whether Milieu Teaching-AV (compared to Milieu Teaching-NoAV) results in (a) increased looking towards caregivers' faces, (b) increased communicative behaviors and language skill, and (c) increased engagement with the caregiver during play. We will also look at caregiver factors, such as their use of strategies and their attitudes toward the intervention they received.

Conditions

• Autism
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Autism, Susceptibility to, 6

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Milieu Teaching-AV

Milieu Teaching is a previously developed and well established Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention. Key principles of Milieu Teaching include: (a) individualized treatment goals based on the child's entry-level communication abilities, (b) use of environmental arrangement, reciprocal social interactions and/or play routines with balanced turns to maximize engagement and opportunities for child attention or communication leads, (c) child-initiated teaching episodes, (d) adult modeling of communication targets and language, and (e) expansion of child communication with more complex strategies. Coaches will teach caregivers to engage their infant in play or routines around a standardized set of toys, follow their infant's attention or communication lead around these toys, and respond to their infant's communication acts by modeling and expanding those communication acts into more sophisticated strategies.

BEHAVIORAL

Milieu Teaching-NoAV

Milieu Teaching is a previously developed and well established Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention. Key principles of Milieu Teaching include: (a) individualized treatment goals based on the child's entry-level communication abilities, (b) use of environmental arrangement, reciprocal social interactions and/or play routines with balanced turns to maximize engagement and opportunities for child attention or communication leads, (c) child-initiated teaching episodes, (d) adult modeling of communication targets and language, and (e) expansion of child communication with more complex strategies. Coaches will teach caregivers to engage their infant in play or routines around a standardized set of toys, follow their infant's attention or communication lead around these toys, and respond to their infant's communication acts by modeling and expanding those communication acts into more sophisticated strategies.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

  collaborator NIH

• Father Flanagan's Boys' Home

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

5 Months

Max Age

13 Months

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-04-30

Primary Completion

2029-02-28

Completion

2029-02-28

Countries

• United States

Study Locations