Integrated Smart Speaker/Mobile Application to Promote Positive Parenting Among Caregivers of Youth with Challenging Behaviors

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT A substantial body of evidence supports the use of behavioral parenting strategies in reducing child disruptive behavior disorders. Empirically supported behavioral parent training protocols exist to teach parents how to employ these effective parenting strategies, but many obstacles interfere with parents' access to these supports and their regular use of effective parenting strategies, such as high cost of professional services and the logistics and burdens of daily life. Smart speaker and mobile technologies enable the development and dissemination of evidence-based parenting supports to families at lower cost and in formats that parents prefer, overcoming barriers to engagement, expanding reach, and providing in-situ supports to parents for their implementation of effective parenting strategies. Parents need a resource for obtaining trustworthy, scientifically valid parenting information in a digestible format that can assist them in developing and implementing individualized behavior plans for their children. Parents face numerous barriers to consistent implementation of even the strongest behavior plans, including remembering to follow through, keeping track of the details, and maintaining communication among all relevant parties (co-parents, youth). These barriers are exactly the kinds of factors that smart speaker and mobile technologies are often able to address, providing effective in-situ support to parents in implementing target parenting strategies. In this Phase I application, we propose to develop and establish feasibility of an integrated smart speaker and mobile/web application, “FamilyNet”, designed to help parents utilize best practices in behavioral parent training to create and implement personalized behavior plans for their children. The FamilyNet system will assist families in creating the behavior plan, and then will track compliance, timelines, incentives, and other details to assist parents in following through and maintaining the program that they have created. An initial proof of concept prototype will be developed in the Phase I project and pilot-tested with 35 families of youth ages 12-15 with challenging behaviors. If the Phase I project meets its benchmarks (prototype is developed, families are able to utilize the interface and report finding it helpful), we will develop the full product in Phase II. This fully built parenting resource will utilize the Phase I infrastructure, incorporate feedback from Phase I participants, and add additional features such as extending the number of target behaviors, settings (e.g. multiple households), and roles (e.g. data from teachers and feedback to therapists). In Phase II, we will also conduct a stronger empirical test of the FamilyNet system with a fully powered randomized trial to evaluate its effects on parenting practices and child behavior.