Arkansas Autism Partnership

2012

The Arkansas Autism Partnership (AAP)is a Medicaid Waiver Program designed to provide intensive home-based intervention for children with autism between 18 months and 7 years of age. This program is anticipated to roll out in July of 2012 and will serve approximately 100 children in its initial phase. The program will provide 20-35 hours per week of one-on-one intervention that is evidence based, including (but not limited to) Applied Behavior Analysis treatment. This waiver will be the first mechanism in the State for such treatment to occur. The role of the UCEDD is in development of the application to CMS, providing training for the workforce for implementation of the program, and then serving the State as the Administrative Agency once the program is implemented. Additionally, the UCEDD will work with another University in the State to collect data on efficacy of the program, both at the individual child level and the systems level. Through its participation in the CDC's Autism and Developmental Disabiltiies Monitoring Project, it was identified that 1 out of every 145 children (1:93 boys; 1:345 girls)in Arkansas fit the case definition for an ASD. Given this prevalence rate, the State created a Legislative Task Force on Autism to reviw the States response to ASD and develop recommendations for the General Assembly of future steps needed to improve the States' reponse. The priority recommendation of this Task Force was to develop a Medicaid waiver program for intensive early intervention. This recommendation resulted in the enactment of a state law requiring that such a program be developed and the subsequent contract from the State DD Agency with the UCEDD to accomplish this task. The program is designed to provide 20-30 hours per week of intensive intervention utilizing evidence based practices. Since the program is home-based, parents are required to fully participate as part of the intervention team. Another unusual feature of the program is that the workforce that will develop/implement the treatment plans for the children is multi-disicplinary, including behavior analysts, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and special educators. This feature was included to enable an individualized approach to each child. It is expected that the majority of the children served in this waiver will progress to the point where they will not need significant support in special education or throught the State DD agency as older children and adults. It is hoped that the intensity of the intervention and the young age at which it is delivered will result in a large number of the children served becoming indistinguishable from their peers.

Performing Technical Assistance and/or Training, Performing Research or Evaluation, Developing & Disseminating Information

Quality Assurance, Education & Early Intervention, Quality of Life

Professionals and Para-Professionals, Family Members/Caregivers, Children/Adolescents with Disabilities/SHCN

Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Limited English, Geographic Areas, Rural/Remote, Specific Groups

Single-County, Mulit-County, State

N/A