Parent-led communication therapy for bilingual families of autistic children: A scoping review protocol

Abstract Despite a plethora of evidence demonstrating the importance of maintaining bilingualism for children on the autism spectrum, there remain many barriers to accessing learning and communication support for children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) families. In an increasingly globalised world, in which many countries have established more than one national language, bilingualism is the norm for more than half the world’s population. Parent-led therapy (PLT) is critical for autistic children, more so for those from CaLD families, for whom access to dual/multi-language and communication support is more difficult. The aim of this scoping review protocol is to structure the mapping of published literature on PLT for young autistic children in the bilingual context. The concept of this study is to identify the availability of early support programs that can be delivered by parents and/or key caregivers to their young autistic children. The context of this study is to identify PLT programs that have been examined in the bilingual environment. This review will allow researchers to explore the extent, range, and nature of evidence available in this area, which can be used to guide discussions about supporting communication development of CaLD autistic children. This study protocol has been preregistered with the Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/HY9R2).