An intensive telehealth assessment and treatment model for an adult with developmental disabilities

•Intensive-outpatient telehealth model completed with family from their home to assess and treat challenging behavior of a young man with developmental disabilities.•Caregivers demonstrated high procedural integrity across multiple contexts, activities, and settings.•Treatment procedures were extended to untrained activities and settings with similar success.•Caregiver reported high satisfaction with treatment and its outcomes, appropriateness for the child, and willingness to implement treatment outside of appointments. Over the last decade, the provision of applied behavior analysis (ABA) services within a telehealth delivery format has had a flourishing literature base. Research has demonstrated that caregivers can successfully conduct functional analyses and functional communication training to treat challenging behavior with coaching from practitioners via telehealth. Previous limitations include research that has only been conducted with children, typically in 1hr, weekly meetings, so the utility of providing ABA therapy via telehealth across the lifespan is unknown. Additionally, the effects of a more intensive treatment format delivered via telehealth has not been evaluated. The purpose of the current study was to coach caregivers to conduct the assessment and treatment process for a young man with developmental disabilities using an intensive-outpatient model in a telehealth format. Functional analysis procedures led to the development of a function-based treatment to reduce challenging behavior and increase functional communication. Caregivers demonstrated high procedural integrity across all phases of the study and found the intervention highly acceptable and effective. Areas for future research and directions are discussed.