The Effectiveness of the Turkish Version of the Responsive Teaching Program Applied as an Online Group Intervention on Autistic Children and Their Fathers: A Randomized Control Study

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the Turkish Version of the Responsive Teaching program applied as an online group intervention on autistic children and their fathers. In this study, conducted with pre-test-post-test control group experimental design, 20 father-child pairs were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. This study's independent variable was the implementation of the Turkish Version of the Responsive Teaching (TV-RT) program (TV-RT) applied as an online group intervention. The dependent variables of this study were (a) fathers' interactional behaviors, (b) fathers' ability to use TV-RT strategies, (c) children's interactional behaviors, (d) children's ability to use TV-RT pivotal behaviors, (e) children's social interaction behaviors (typical social interaction and autistic interaction), and (f) the opinions of the fathers and mothers of the children in the experimental group about the program and results. Data were collected with the Turkish Version of the Maternal/Parent Behavior Rating Scale (M/PBRS-TV) to measure fathers' interactional behaviors; the Responsive Teaching-Parent Strategy Profile (RT-PSP) to measure fathers' level of use of the TV-RT strategies; the Turkish Version of the Child Behavior Rating Scale (CBRS-TV) to measure children's interactional behaviors; the Responsive Teaching-Pivotal Behavior Profile (RT-PBP) to measure children's level of displaying TV-RT pivotal behaviors; and the Turkish Version of the Social Interaction Assessment Instrument (SIAI-TV) to measure children's social interaction behaviors (typical social interaction and autistic interaction). In addition, social validity data were collected from the fathers and mothers in the experimental group through satisfaction questionnaires. Results revealed that the fathers of autistic children who received the intervention differed significantly on the use of TV-RT strategies and the quality of interactional behaviors from the fathers who did not receive the intervention. On the other side, autistic children in the experimental group showed significant progress on interactional behaviors, TV-RT pivotal behaviors, and social interaction behaviors and improved changes on autistic interaction behaviors. Fathers who participated in the online group TV-RT program, and their wives (mothers) as outside observers, reported high satisfaction with the program. Results were discussed extensively, and future suggestions are provided.