Introduction: Recent studies have demonstrated that naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention (NDBI) effectively improves the social communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, there are limited studies on its effectiveness for intervention in children with ASD and co-occurring severe intellectual disorders. Therefore, the current study used an AB design to examine the effects of NDBI-based parent training (PT) on social communication skills in children with profound autism. Participant: The study recruited a nonverbal child with ASD (CA: 52 months, DQ: 31) and her mother. Method: We implemented an 8-week online PT. (1) Phase 1 lasted for 5 weeks at 100 min per week. For each session, the mother watched a 20-min NDBI learning video and practiced the techniques with the child for approximately 30 min. The mother recorded the practice session and then uploaded the video to an online folder. Thereafter, we conducted a 50-min online meeting based on the edited and annotated home practice video. (2) Phase 2 lasted for 3 weeks at 50 min per week. The experimenter conducted an online interview with the mother for approximately 30 min using the home practice videos uploaded online. Result: Phase 1 exhibited significant increases in the percentages of eye contact and smile compared with those at baseline. Phase 2 demonstrated a subtle increase in the percentages of functional utterance and eye contact, while variations existed between intervention sessions. Conclusion: The intervention effectively promoted positive affect and displayed variability in its effect on the vocalization and utterance of the child. The conditions that produce stable behaviors in children with ASD should be analyzed in future studies. In addition, comparative studies can be conducted on the effects of various online PTs on the acquisition of intervention techniques by parents and the influence of improvement in these techniques on the acquisition of target behaviors by children with ASD.

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