Numerous research studies have showed that parent mediated early intervention (EI) can improve cognitive ability, social functioning, behavior, and adaptive skill in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Project ImPACT uses strategies to help children with ASD develop skills for daily routines and activities. Within project ImPACT is PEACE and PICCOLO, which aim to use community partnered research methods to develop a toolkit of implementation strategies. However, much of community based early intervention lack the proper parent coaching and use of evidence-based strategies. The goal of Project ImPACT is therefore to train these providers to teach parents the proper skills to then use on their child to improve their communication skills.

The method to collect the data from this study was done in three sections. To measure how well the provider coached the parent in NDBI strategies was through parent empowerment and coaching EI, or PEACE. This codebook had several items we scaled from 1-5 based on how well the provider taught the parent. The next section consisted of how well the parent took these learned skills and used them with the child. We coded these actions through PICCOLO which had categories such as teaching and encouragement of the child. Finally, the last section measured how well the child responded to these strategies. The BOSCC looked for improvement in areas such as eye contact, vocalizations and facial expressions of the child.

This data was inputted into REDCAP where it could be compared and verified with other codes. The preliminary results of Project impact were positive with child communication skills increasing with intervention in the Vineland standard score, and parent stress decreasing in the PSI-SF total raw score.