Changing Developmental Trajectories of Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Strategies for Bridging Research to Community Practice

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Amy M. Wetherby, Florida State University; Juliann Woods, Florida State University; Whitney Guthrie, Florida State University; Abigail Delehanty, Florida State University; Jennifer A. Brown, University of Georgia; Lindee Morgan, Emory University; Renee D. Holland, Florida State University; Christopher Schatschneider, Florida State University; Catherine Lord, Weill Cornell Medical College
• Language: English
• Date: 2018-11-01
• Publisher: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2018, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. All rights reserved.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-RSAUT-18-0028
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
• ISSN: 1092-4388
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 11
• Start Page: 2615
• End Page: 2628
• Grant/Funding Information: This article stems from the 2017 Research Symposium at ASHA Convention, which was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders under Award R13DC003383 (Amy M. Wetherby).; Research for this article was also supported by the National Institute of Mental Health under Awards R01MH077730 and R01MH078165 (Amy M. Wetherby, Catherine Lord) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under Award R01HD093055 (Amy M. Wetherby) of the National Institutes of Health.; This research was also supported in part by the funding from Autism Speaks (Grant 1791 awarded to Amy M. Wetherby and Catherine Lord; Grant 8551/Dennis Weatherstone Predoctoral Fellowship awarded to Whitney Guthrie) and the Simons Foundation (Catherine Lord).
• Keywords: Social Sciences; FEASIBILITY; Linguistics; COMMUNICATION INTERVENTION; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; ASD; DISABILITIES; MEDIATED INTERVENTION; Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology; PARENT-IMPLEMENTED INTERVENTION; Rehabilitation; 2ND YEAR; PROFESSIONAL-DEVELOPMENT; EARLY-CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION; Science & Technology; YOUNG-CHILDREN
• Research Categories: Psychology, Cognitive; Health Sciences, Speech Pathology

Abstract

Purpose: The need for community-viable, evidence-based social communication, developmental level, and adaptive intervention strategies for toddlers with autism spectrum behavior. A new measure of active engagement in the disorder (ASD) is a national priority. The purpose of this natural environment was found to be sensitive to change research forum article is to identify gaps in intervention in 3 months for young toddlers with ASD and to predict research and needs in community practice for toddlers with outcomes on the standardized measures of child outcomes. ASD, incorporate published findings from a randomized Strategies for utilizing the Autism Navigator collection of controlled trial (RCT) of the Early Social Interaction (ESI) model web-based courses and tools using extensive video footage (Wetherby et al., 2014) to illustrate community-based for families and professional development are offered for intervention, report new findings on child active engagement scaling up in community settings to change developmental from the ESI RCT, and offer solutions to bridge the research-to-community trajectories of toddlers with ASD. practice gap. Conclusions: Current health care and education systems Method: Research findings were reviewed to identify gaps in are challenged to provide intervention of adequate intensity the evidence base for toddlers with ASD. Published and new for toddlers with ASD. The use of innovative technology can findings from the multisite ESI RCT compared the effects of increase acceleration of access to evidence-based early two different ESI conditions for 82 toddlers with ASD to teach intervention for toddlers with ASD that addresses health parents how to support active engagement in natural environments. disparities, enables immediate response as soon as ASD is Results: The RCT of the ESI model was the only parent-implemented suspected, and rapidly bridges the research-to-practice gap. intervention that reported differential treatment Presentation Video: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha. effects on standardized measures of child outcomes, including 7297817