Parents As Partners, Not Trainees
Rethinking Early Intervention
Liu, Schertz and Horn’s 2025 study in Young Exceptional Children opens with a familiar scene. A toddler named Henry has just been diagnosed with autism. His parents feel stressed and pulled in different directions by professionals who cannot agree. Enter an early interventionist named Mary. Instead of imposing a program, Mary shifts the frame: she coaches the parents to notice Henry’s interests, join his play and build communication into their daily routines. The approach is called Building Interactive Social Communication (BISC). It does not chase compliance. It does not script every move. It works by mediating the parents’ own learning so they can mediate their child’s.
From Drill To Dialogue
Most early intervention programs still default to behavior shaping. The BISC framework resists that ableist pull. It introduces three mediating practices: Focusing, Giving Meaning and Encouraging Self-Reliance. Rather than demanding eye contact or scripted responses, parents are guided to follow their child’s lead. In Henry’s case, that meant turning bath-time splashes into reciprocal games, or joining his love of music with shared dancing. Each step is explained, not as a deficit to repair, but as an opportunity to co-create social connection. Parents reflect on what worked. They see themselves as active agents rather than passive trainees. That shift is subtle but significant.
The Strength Of Reciprocity
The study repeatedly emphasizes reciprocity. Providers are “guides on the side.” Parents are equal collaborators. A child's spontaneous engagement is validated rather than forced. Even video reviews are used not to critique but to highlight what parents did that made their child respond. The effect is confidence, not correction. Families are encouraged to adapt practices to their culture, language and routines. That respect for context is rare in early intervention research. It nudges the field toward strength-based framing rather than deficit-based remediation.
Where The Old Logic Still Lurks
Yet traces of the old medical model remain. The article still describes autistic children as having “unique social communication needs” and measures success in terms of approaching neurotypical norms. Eligibility and framing are controlled by professionals, not autistic people themselves. The parents in the case study are empowered, but autistic adults are absent from the design. Without autistic authorship, the intervention remains one step removed from true participatory practice. It avoids the harshest harms of compliance-first logic, but it cannot escape the gravitational pull of institutional authority.
Better Questions For The Next Round
What would it look like if autistic adults co-designed these frameworks from the start? How might “mediated learning” apply beyond toddlers — perhaps in adolescent peer groups, or even in parent–adult child relationships? Could this approach scale without placing even more responsibility on parents already carrying heavy loads? And why is cultural respect presented as progressive rather than baseline? These questions point to the gaps that remain even in stronger allyship research.
The Protective Edge
This study earns a rare "bravo!" It reframes parents as partners and centers everyday life as the site of learning. It avoids compliance drills and deficit tallies. It offers a model that other early intervention research could follow if it chose respect over correction. But until autistic-led design sets the terms, even the most family-centered programs will stop short of transformation. BISC shows what happens when dialogue replaces drills. The next step is to let autistic voices guide the conversation from the ground up.