INTRODUCTION Interventions targeting children with developmental disabilities should be family-centered and promote the family’s building of skills and competencies to enhance genuine self-sustainability. This typically puts demands on parents to engage in interventions and to acquire and adapt to new knowledge and insights, thus framing them as learners. However, clinicians may lack pedagogical training and feel uncertain about taking on the educator role, and associated research is lacking. The Self-Determination Theory is a widely applied framework, where learning, motivation and growth are reliant on fulfillment of three basic, psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. In this study, we examined clinicians’ experiences of creating a supportive learning climate in partnership with parents in a group-based, parent-mediated communication intervention aiming at families of children with developmental disabilities (the AKKtiv ComAlong), through the lens of Self-Determination Theory. METHOD A qualitative descriptive design was used. Four focus groups including 13 clinicians (mainly speech-language pathologists) were conducted. All participants were accredited ComAlong-instructors. Self-Determination Theory informed the topic guide. Verbatim transcripts from the focus groups were subjected to practical thematic analysis. RESULTS Two main themes captured the participants’ experiences: “Clinicians strive to create a safe, social environment” (e.g., fostering unpretentiousness and openness) and “Clinicians strive to adjust the teaching to each individual” (e.g., conveying theory in concrete ways and finding relevant angles for each parent). Four sub-themes were defined, and learning-enhancing strategies were extracted and mapped onto the sub-themes. CONCLUSIONS Self-Determination Theory was a relevant framework for examining and anchoring the clinicians’ parent-directed educational practices. The results suggest that ComAlong-interventionists view parents’ learning as unique processes that require volition and individual meaning-making, which in turn is scaffolded by concrete and open communication and non-hierarchical relationships between parent and clinician. These views align well with concepts of patient- and family-centered care. Implications will be discussed.