NCT06794476

Milieu Teaching-AV (MT-AV Pilot)

Milieu Teaching-AV (MT-AV Pilot): A Pilot Study to Assess the Feasibility of an Adaptation of Milieu Teaching for Infant Siblings of Autistic Children That Encourages Looking to the Mouth

• Status: Withdrawn
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 0 (actual)
• Sponsor: Father Flanagan's Boys' Home · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 5 Months – 12 Months
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This project will look at whether a novel approach to language intervention that encourages looking to audiovisual speech cues for infants with autistic older siblings (Baby Sibs), who are highly likely be diagnosed with autism or developmental language disorder (DLD). This study will specifically look at (a) whether caregivers find this approach to be easy to implement in their homes, (b) whether they find this approach to be acceptable, and (c) whether caregivers use the taught strategies in interactions with their infants.

Detailed description

This project will test the feasibility and acceptability of a novel approach to language intervention based on Milieu Teaching (Milieu Teaching-AV) that encourages looking to audiovisual speech cues for infants with autistic older siblings (Sibs-autism), who are highly likely be diagnosed with autism or developmental language disorder (DLD). The main question\[s\] it aims to answer are: 1. Can caregivers be trained in Milieu Teaching-AV, such that they are using the trained strategies in play with their infant children? 2. Do caregivers find these procedures to be acceptable and feasible to use in their everyday life.

Conditions

• Autism Sibling
• Autism Spectrum Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Milieu Teaching-AV	In Milieu Teaching-AV, coaches will teach caregivers to engage the child in play or routines around a standardized set of toys, follow the child's attention or communication lead around these toys, and respond to the infant's communication acts by modeling and expanding those communication acts into more sophisticated strategies. While responding to infant communication acts, coaches will slowly move the referent of the infant's lead near the face at approximately the level of the mouth, wait for the infant to shift his/her gaze towards the new referent position if necessary, and provide all models, prompting, and expanding while maintaining placement of the referent near the mouth.

Timeline

• Start date: 2026-03-18
• Primary completion: 2026-03-18
• Completion: 2026-03-18
• First posted: 2025-01-27
• Last updated: 2026-03-24

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States