SkillTalk: Communication Training around Sexual Health Topics for Parents of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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ABSTRACT SkillTalk: Communication Training around Sexual Health Topics for Parents of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face a range of impairments in social interaction and communication settings, including those involved with sexual communication and behavior. Like their neurotypical peers, adolescents with ASD need comprehensive sexual education to learn and practice healthy sexual development and relationships, and to prevent negative sexual outcomes such as unwanted pregnancy, STIs, sexual abuse, and inappropriate sexual behaviors. Unfortunately, many adolescents with ASD are engaging in sexual activities and behaviors with little or no sexual education until a crisis occurs. Targeted, evidence-based sexual education resources for youth with ASD are limited and not routinely offered in schools. While experts recommend that all parents serve as the primary sex educators for their children, parents of adolescents with ASD face additional, complex challenges. These include uncertainties about how and when to communicate about sex, fears of inciting inappropriate behavior, and worries about their child’s psychosexual functioning, such as limited awareness of public and personal boundaries. In addition, parents are providing less sexual health education, with limited topics, and at a later age than is provided to neurotypical youth. To address these issues and provide support to parents, this Phase II SBIR project will complete development of and evaluate a highly focused Microskills video library titled SkillTalk ASD. The resource will build and support the skills that parents of ASD youth need to offer sexual education to their children. This mobile friendly site and accompanying mobile apps will provide video modeling of critical parent Microskills for teaching sexual education to youth with ASD in a way that is engaging, instructionally sound, and encourages repeat and continued use. When complete, the site will include approximately 350 video clips, grouped into skill sets that visually demonstrate a Microskill in 30–120 seconds. In addition, the resource includes companion Making Connections youth videos offering visual modeling of social/sexual communication scenarios to help facilitate parent discussion, and to offer youth with ASD the ability to watch multiple times for re-enforcement of appropriate behavioral approaches in these complicated social situations. With ongoing input and guidance from a team of ASD expert advisors, including parents of and youth with ASD, the project will 1) develop the content for and produce approximately 350 Microskills within 25 skill sets and 60+ Making Connection videos; 2) complete development of the SkillTalk ASD platform with forums and search/retrieval; 3) develop mobile apps for parents and youth to access SkillTalk content privately and facilitate communication; and 4) conduct a randomized controlled trial with parent/child dyads to assess improvements in parent skills, knowledge, comfort and confidence and youth knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.