The objective of the proposed study is to develop implementation tools to facilitate an improved quality of carefor school-aged youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) receiving services in community mental healthsettings. The NIMH Strategic Research Priorities call for innovative service delivery models to improve theoutcomes of mental health services received in diverse communities and populations, including the use oftechnology-based strategies to make evidence based practices (EBPs) available, deliverable, effective, andscalable in non-specialty settings, and for service system interventions designed to improve functionaloutcomes for people with ASD (Objective 4). To achieve these goals, EBPs for school-aged youth with ASDneed to be prepared and optimized for implementation in the community settings where most youth with ASDreceive treatment. Implementation of EBPs for youth with ASD will require effective Quality Control (QC)procedures (therapist training and support procedures and QC instruments to gauge the success of thetraining/support procedures). As a first step towards these goals, in the proposed project we will accomplishthree primary aims: (a) Develop a flexible, internet-based, video supported training and real time therapistguidance application to support clinician implementation of the Modular EBPs for Youth with ASD (MEYA), acompendium of EBPs for school-aged youth with ASD; (b) Develop the MEYA Integrity Scale, a pragmatictreatment integrity scale designed to gauge the success of the MEYA Training System and serve as afeedback tool in supervision; and (c) Assess the feasibility and promise of these MEYA QC procedures toimprove therapist delivery of MEYA via key mediators (therapist knowledge, engagement) in a multiplebaseline study. A panel of stakeholders comprised of end-users from community treatment centers for youthwith autism will advise the research team on design features of the MEYA Training System and Integrity Scale.A software designer and videographer will work with the research team to realize the MEYA Training System,which will include multiple design features to maximize clinician engagement, motivation, and learning guidedby contemporary models of implementation and learning (e.g., Proctor et al., 2011). The MEYA Integrity Scalewill be refined and validated against a pre-existing archive of 1020 MEYA and comparison treatment sessionsfrom NIH-funded clinical trials. The multiple baseline study will recruit 15 clinicians working with youth with ASDin community settings. The MEYA Training System will be assessed for acceptability and feasibility in this trial,and the primary outcome measure will be therapists' scores on the MEYA Integrity Scale following the onset ofthe intervention. The MEYA Training System and Integrity Scale will be refined based on stakeholder andclinician feedback and prepared for evaluation in a future R01 effectiveness trial testing the MEYA TrainingSystem in conjunction with different training and supervision approaches typically used in community settings.
Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC)
Autism Research Database (AFD)
