Translating Autism Intervention for Mental Health Services via Knowledge Exchange

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this career development award is to provide the applicant with the advanced training and skills necessary to develop an independent program of research developing methods to translate research- based behavioral interventions for children with autistic spectrum disorders into the public mental health service system. By applying multidisciplinary models of knowledge exchange processes, the applicant will have the skills to develop and test a mental health intervention protocol that individualizes research-based interventions for children with ASD in public mental health settings based on child and family clinical characteristics. Through the training activities, the applicant will (1) develop expertise in the child and family characteristics of school-age children with ASD served in public mental health settings in order to tailor and individualize interventions for this population, (2) obtain training in models of collaborative knowledge exchange from multiple disciplines that will be used in the process of developing a mental health intervention approach based on the research-based interventions for school-age children with ASD and a training model to apply this intervention approach, (3) acquire skills in qualitative and quantitative methodology that can be applied to both examining usual care and for large-scale implementation trials, (4) obtain experience using innovative technology in clinician training, (5) receive training in ethical conduct of scientific research. The research plan that is proposed as part of this career development award is organized in three phases. Phase 1 will focus on characterizing (1) children with ASD and their families served in the public mental health settings in order to individualize research-based interventions for use in these settings and (2) the training needs of mental health service providers from multiple disciplines. Phase 2 will use a collaborative knowledge exchange framework to develop a mental health intervention protocol for children with ASD and a clinician training model for this approach. Phase 3 will involve a feasibility and acceptability study of the implementation of the training model developed. Research under this award will serve as pilot data for future R01 large-scale studies examining the impact on child and family level outcomes of implementing research- based behavioral interventions for children with ASD in public mental health settings.