Considering Culture in Autism Screening: A Culturally & Linguistically Competent Training Curriculum for Pediatric Providers (Noonan Research Fund)
Project Description:
The goal of the demonstration project is to develop, implement, and evaluate an educational module that trains pediatric providers in culturally competent screening, evaluation, and referral to intervention services for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Children with ASD from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds remain significantly less likely to be identified for evaluation and services and are also diagnosed at later ages than English-speaking children. Early diagnosis is essential to ensure that children with ASD receive early intervention services, which positively impacts developmental progress and long-term outcomes. Our collaborative project team proposes to build upon our previously developed Considering Culture in Autism Screening kit to develop a cultural competence training module that can be used to train pediatric providers. Our proposed project fills an important gap, since cultural disparities in early identification exist and no such cultural competence training curricula is currently available. The training module will include didactic information, case studies, and supplementary materials, and will focus on the needs of families whose primary languages are not English: specifically, Chinese, Haitian-Creole, Hispanic and Vietnamese populations. Each case study will feature short videos that will be developed to demonstrate best practice in culturally and linguistically competent care. We will pilot the training module over a six month period with 60 pediatric and family medicine residents from Boston Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center. We will evaluate the curriculums efficacy and feasibility via pre-tests and post-test measures of knowledge, applied knowledge, and attitude, as well as post-tests of satisfaction. We envision future expansion of the proposed pilot to include on-site and online training for continuing education credits for a range of pediatric professionals.
Keyword(s):
ASD, screening, cultural & linguistic competence, early ID, training
Core Function(s):
Training Trainees, Performing Research or Evaluation, Developing & Disseminating Information, Continuing Education/Community Training, Demonstration Services
Area of Emphasis
Education & Early Intervention, Health-Related Activities, Quality of Life, Other - Cultural Diversity
Target Audience:
Students/Trainees (long or intermediate trainees), Community Trainees / Short term trainees, Professionals and Para-Professionals
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances, Limited English, Geographic Areas, Rural/Remote, Urban, Specific Groups
Primary Target Audience Geographic Descriptor:
State, National
COVID-19 Related Data:
N/A
