Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of the HomeGoals Parent Coaching Program (HG-PCP), a tailored coaching program for parents of toddlers with expressive language delay. The HG-PCP, is designed to support families with their current needs by providing diagnosis education, implementing intervention in natural environments, and prepare them to provide ongoing support of their child’s early language needs and thereby decrease parent perceived stress. Method: This investigation utilized a multiple baseline across participants design to examine the effects of the HG-PCP, to increase knowledge and skills in implementing treatments and to thereby decrease parent stress. Two parent-child dyads participated in the investigation 3 times a week over the course of five weeks. Results: Results indicate that the HG-PCP had a positive effect on parent knowledge and skills. Further, as knowledge and skills increased perceived parent stress decreased. Conclusion: These findings reveal that HomeGoals may be considered an effective program which increases parent knowledge and skills while decreasing perceived parent stress and mitigating expressive language gaps in the 16-24 month population. These findings support the need for professionals working in early intervention to empower parents with information in a systematic format in order to offset parent’s perceived stress. Future research will replicate the investigation with parent-child dyads, train additional SLPs to implement HG-PCP to compare validity and reliability and investigate dosage protocols to suggest best practice standards to reduce expressive language gaps.
