Acceptance of Telehealth Therapy to Replace In-Person Therapy for Autism Treatment During COVID-19 Pandemic: An Assessment of Patient Variables

Importance: Children with autism achieve improved behavioral outcomes with applied behavior analytic (ABA) interventions. Typically, ABA is delivered in a participant's home or in a clinic setting. At the onset of COVID-19, treatment in these environments was not available due to health exposure concerns. A large social service organization in California rapidly pivoted to the delivery of ABA intervention through telehealth. Access disparity for telehealth has been a historical concern in health care delivery, particularly for disenfranchised populations within the autistic participant population.Objective: This study evaluated the demographic and behavioral variables associated with the acceptance or declination of telehealth by the pediatric participants' caregivers at the onset of the pandemic.Design, Setting, Participants: A non-experimental design was used, and archival data were compared for a random sample of 100 participants with autism who accepted telehealth interventions with 100 participants who declined it.Main Outcomes and Measures: Socioeconomic data, gender, age, ethnicity, language, and household size were compared. Clinical data were compared for treatment dosage, standardized Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales scores, and Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program scores.Results: None of the demographic variables were statistically significant in a participant's acceptance or declination of telehealth, but there were moderate differences in treatment dosage across the groups.Conclusions: It is concerning that a large portion of participants initially declined intervention via telehealth, resulting in these participants experiencing a gap in intervention during the pandemic. As intervention is imperative for pediatric autism participants, it is untenable that similar to 40% of the population initially declined telehealth at the start of the pandemic.