121 Session 5
Papers Topic - Phone Apps for Families Advancing Comprehensive Early Childhood Intervention
P5.07 Empowering Families: A Cross-Cultural Evaluation of the Special Olympics Young Athletes Mobile Application Presenting Author: Ashlyn Smith (USA) Affiliation: Special Olympics International Co-Authors: Marco Delsanto, Rebecca Ralston, Cassandra Ryan, Lucas VanderPloeg Special Olympics Young Athletes (SOYA) is an inclusive early childhood program delivering play-based developmental skill activities to support motor and social development for young children ages 2 to 7 with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Building on the success of traditional in-person programming, SO developed a mobile application to support YA implementation at home. A mixed-methods evaluation with 311 families of children with IDD across four state and country level SO Programs (US-Ohio, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Malta) was conducted to understand frequency and duration of app use, perceived impact of the YA app, and challenges with app usage. Preliminary results indicate that parents who used the app more than once a week and for at least 15 minutes per session reported that their children learned new skills and reported a greater increase in time spent playing with their child. Differences across countries and cultures will be discussed. P5.06 Effect of a Home-Based Participation Intervention for Children With Disabilities Via WhatsApp: A Feasibility Study Presenting Author: Carmen Matey-Rodriguez (Spain) Affiliation: i+HeALTH, Department of Health Sciences, Miguel de Cervantes European University, Valladolid, Spain Co-Authors: Robert J. Palisano, Mónica Pico, Verónica Robles-García Children with disabilities often have restrictions on participation in different contexts. To address these limitations, family- centered services emphasize collaboration between families and service providers to set goals. In this context, telemedicine emerges as a potential method to facilitate this collaboration in daily routines, continuing from early intervention to the school-aged services. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of a telehealth intervention using WhatsApp text, audio, and video messaging on the achievement of individualized goals for performance and satisfaction on activities in daily routines. A clinical trial was conducted with 21 participants, involving an 8-week participation-based intervention. The intervention followed the 5 steps implementation process, with the therapist acting primarily as a consultant to facilitate the practice of individualized goals within daily routines where all were engaged. Statistically and clinically significant improvements were observed in the performance and satisfaction of the individualized participation goals, assessed in three points (baseline, post-intervention and follow-up). A participation-based intervention using WhatsApp appears to be effective in improving performance and satisfaction of individualized participation goals. However, further research is needed.
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