Tag Archive for: Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders

child being evaluated for autism

Using a multisystem approach to improve access to autism care in Washington, D.C.

child being evaluated for autism

Children with autism face significant barriers to accessing evaluations and intervention services.

An article in the journal Pediatrics reviews the outcomes from a collective, targeted advocacy approach to improving access to autism supports and resources for children and their families in Washington, D.C. The effort was led by Children’s National Hospital and engaged a multidisciplinary team from within the hospital and across a wide range of community sectors.

What this means

Children’s National and DC Autism Parents worked collaboratively with a coalition of organizations from the broader District of Columbia community to address some of the biggest challenges and barriers that prevent autistic children and their families from receiving the resources and support they need in the nation’s capital.

Why it matters

Children with autism face significant barriers to accessing evaluations and intervention services often because of confusing referral processes, lack of centralized coordination across organizations serving children with autism, insurance coverage gaps, multiyear waitlists for diagnostic services and limited provider knowledge about autism. Racism and systemic inequities also persist in autism care across the United States.

Long and growing wait times in autism diagnostic clinics and lack of centralized care coordination for autistic children are prevalent across the District of Columbia, and as a result, many children and families in the region continue to lack access to the support they need.

What’s unique

The study describes multiyear efforts (2017–2022) to improve autism care throughout the District of Columbia using a collective impact framework to unite organizations from different sectors. This approach features the creation of a common agenda (including defining goals and priorities), shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication and infrastructure support.

Together, the group members sought to address barriers and overcome challenges at multiple levels of the healthcare system at the same time by focusing advocacy in three specific areas:

  • Infrastructure-building initiatives/system-level approaches.
  • Population- and community-level services to build capacity and connect providers and families to needed resources.
  • Direct services that provide innovative, gap-filling supports to children and families as a stopgap until the necessary supports can be more sustainably provided across the board.

Bottom line

While more work is needed to continue expanding the availability of needed services, the findings from this initial effort can inform the next steps in Washington, D.C., and serve as a model for a collective framework approach for autism services in other parts of the United States.

You can read the full study “A Multisystem Approach to Improving Autism Care” in the journal Pediatrics.

More information and resources about these autism initiatives can be found at:

boy with autism blowing bubbles

Autistic youth self-reporting critical to understanding of executive function challenges

boy with autism blowing bubbles

Young people with autism are distinctly aware of their own challenges in areas such as flexibility, working memory and inhibition—abilities known collectively as “executive function,” according to the first study to measure and compare self-reports in these areas to more traditional reporting from parents.

Young people with autism are distinctly aware of their own challenges in areas such as flexibility, working memory and inhibition — abilities known collectively as “executive function,” according to the first study to measure and compare self-reports in these areas to more traditional reporting from parents. The study appears in the Journal Autism.

While autism research has started to focus on incorporating the experiences of autistic people themselves through self-reporting and greater inclusion in the design and execution of related research, this is the first time that a study has definitively captured self-reports of executive functions directly from young people with autism.

The study, which included 197 autistic youth, found that while both youth and their parents are in basic agreement about which areas of executive functioning that individual youth struggle with most, parents tended to report higher levels of impairment than the youth reported themselves. Executive function is related to a person’s ability to complete tasks such as adjusting to change, making a plan, getting organized and following through, as well as basic daily tasks like getting up and getting dressed or making small talk.

“While parents are reporting on outwardly observed behaviors in the context of home/community, for example, youth are reporting on their inner experiences across many contexts,” said Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., first author on the study and director of the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s National Hospital. “Our findings support the idea that autistic youth may be drawing their conclusions from different environmental data and cognitive frameworks than their parents, which adds a new dimension to our understanding of executive function in people with autism.”

The data are especially compelling because youth and parent reports of executive function were gathered on parallel measures with consistent items and factor structure, allowing for a true one-to-one comparison between youth and parent reporting.

“These kids are very aware of the areas where they struggle,” Dr. Kenworthy said. “And the findings from this study further elevate the importance of making sure that assessments of executive function take into account the perspective of the youth themselves, which can provide powerful insights into the interventions that they may benefit from the most.”

The study also compared reports from autistic youth to reports from both neurotypical youth and those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), another condition where executive functioning skills can be challenged. There were distinct differences between all three groups—and the challenges profiled by youth with autism and those with ADHD were distinct from each other. For example, autistic youth reported greater challenges with flexibility, emotional control and self-monitoring than those with ADHD, who reported greater struggles with working memory.

The authors noted that future studies should include more performance-based measures, as well as larger numbers of females and people with intellectual disabilities to better understand how self-reporting can play a role in understanding and helping these specific groups. Additionally, developing new measures that capture the inner experience of autism by engaging autistic people in their creation could provide deeper insight into how young people with autism experience the world and how interventions designed to assist them are working (or not).

“These data provide clear evidence of the executive functioning challenges actually experienced by autistic youth as well as the primary role inflexibility plays in the lives of these young people,” the authors concluded. “This additional perspective and context for the experiences of these executive functioning challenges are of high clinical value and complement more frequently gathered assessments in ways never captured before.”

Pediatric Neurology Update Attendees

Pediatric neurologists get a primer on the state of ASD research and care

Pediatric Neurology Update Attendees

Neurologists who attended the 2019 Pediatric Neurology Update received a broad look at autism spectrum disorders, ranging from biology to clinical care and advocacy.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) took center stage for the afternoon sessions of the annual Pediatric Neurology Update in April. The meeting, hosted by the Center for Neuroscience and Behavioral Medicine at Children’s National Health System, brings together 150-plus pediatric neurologists each year to discuss critical research and clinical care of pediatric neurological conditions.

Led by the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders Director Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., the afternoon’s slate of presentations sought to give broad perspective of the current state of ASD research and treatment best practices.

“We know that the brain is different in autism, but many times we continue to define autism by behavioral traits,” Dr. Kenworthy told the crowd in her introduction. “Sitting between the brain and behavior often is cognition – how do you understand your world and interpret it?”

The afternoon’s presentations were organized to provide the audience with a clear picture of many facets of ASD research and treatment. Highlights included:

  • Joshua Corbin, Ph.D., director of the Center for Neuroscience Research, offered “New Insights into the Neurobiologic Underpinnings of Autism,” which mapped out some of the biological mechanisms of autism.
  • Adelaide Robb, M.D., and Dr. Kenworthy presented current clinical care outlines, with Dr. Robb focusing on pharmacological therapies and Dr. Kenworthy sharing successful strategies to improve executive functioning and day to day task management for school-aged children.

Attendees also received a taste of two current “hot topics” in autism research and care:

  • Kevin Pelphrey, Ph.D., presented recent findings on “Gender Differences in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Girls with Autism” calling attention to the fact that the current diagnostic standards may not capture some female-associated phenotypes of ASD.
  • Julia Bascom of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network brought the autistic person’s point of view to the table via her presentation: “Autism: Society and Government Challenges and Solutions,” which focused on her organization’s efforts to improve inclusivity in advocacy and research, which she sums up as, “Nothing about us without us.”

The session concluded with a real-world focused “Autism-Friendly Hospital Roundtable,” of six panelists from the clinical, advocacy, community and technology fields, who are all involved in hands-on practices to improve medical experiences for autistic children and adults.

  • CASD’s Yetta Myrick talked about her work to engage families of autistic children in discussions of research and clinical care programs, including the start of CASD’s first-ever Stakeholder Advisory Board.
  • Julia Bascom talked about some of the less-often discussed challenges for many autistic people who seek medical services.
  • Kathleen Atmore, Psy.D., and Eileen Walters, MSN, RN, CPN, provided an overview of Beyond the Spectrum, the clinical service at Children’s National that coaches providers and families in techniques to reduce the stress of routine medical visits for patients with autism and other developmental disabilities.
  • Amy Kratchman, director of the LEND Family Collaboration at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, talked about some of the autism-friendly strategies underway at her institution.
  • Michael O’Neil, JD, MBA, founder and CEO of the GetWell Network, Inc., previewed how GetWell and Children’s National are partnering on a new tool that harnesses app technology to bring better information to autistic children and their families after a new autism diagnosis.
  • Vijay Ravindran, CEO and co-founder at Floreo, demonstrated how it might be possible to reduce stress and create a calm peaceful autism-friendly environment even in the busiest of waiting rooms, by allowing the patient to escape via virtual reality.

The roundtable showcased how Children’s National and other health care institutions are using evidence-based strategies to improve medical care experiences for autistic people and their families. Ideally any provider, including pediatric neurologists, who cares for people from the autism community, can incorporate any or all of these strategies as a way to meet the unique needs of this patient population.

The content was so timely and relevant to the audience that many attendees stayed past the official end of the meeting to continue discussing best practices with the panelists and each other.

CASD Posters

Bridging gaps in autism care through technology

CASD Posters

CASD Faculty Member and Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Allison Ratto (top left); Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Marissa Miller, (top right); and Research Assistants, Eleonora Sadikova (bottom left) and Laura Saldana (bottom right) presented posters at ABCT.

Technology’s potential to improve care delivery and reduce human suffering were the key focus of discussion at the recent Annual Convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), held in Washington, D.C.

Within ABCT’s Autism Spectrum and Developmental Disabilities Special Interest Group (ASDD SIG), presentations showcased tools that leverage technology to better meet the needs of both autistic people and the clinicians who care for them. Researchers from the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders (CASD) at Children’s National took center stage at the ASD focused group to share information about novel developments underway that harness technology for children and families.

Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., director of CASD, served as the keynote speaker for the ASDD SIG Meeting. She also chaired a panel, “Leveraging Technology to Improve Autism Acceptance and Treatment” and presented, ” Online Parent Training Modules to Improve Executive Function in Autistic Children” about the e-Unstuck and On Target Parent Training Study, which adapts CASD’s successful classroom-based Unstuck and On Target toolkit for children ages 5 to 10 to an online platform so more families can benefit from the program’s skills and strategies.

Dr. Kenworthy was honored with the 2018 Transformative Contribution Award from the ABCT Autism Spectrum and Developmental Disabilities Special Interest Group for her lifetime of contributions to better understanding and better interventions for young people with ASD.

“It was a special honor to receive this recognition from ABCT this year, when the annual meeting is here in our home city,” says Dr. Kenworthy. “The Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders is focused on developing technology solutions that deliver therapies to everyone who needs them, no matter where they live, and technology is one powerful and promising way we can bridge care gaps both in the Washington, D.C. region and really, around the world.”

CASD Talks

Dr. Lauren Kenworthy presenting during the panel she chaired (top); presenting to the ASDD SIG (bottom left); and receiving the ASDD SIG Transformative Award from ASDD SIG Awards Committee Chair, Dr. Tyler Hassenfeldt (bottom right).

In addition to Dr. Kenworthy, several other CASD researchers presented research during panels and poster presentations, including:

  • Panel Presentation: Efficacy of a Parent-Mediated Sexual Education Curriculum for Youth With ASD”– Cara Pugliese, Ph.D.
  • Poster presentations:
    • “Evidence of Enhanced Social Skills in Young Dual-Language Learners on the Autism Spectrum”- Allison Ratto, Ph.D. (first author)
    • “Exploring Contributors to Parents’ Ideal and Realistic Goals for Involvement in School Training”-Marissa Miller, Ph.D. (first author)
    • “Examining Caregiver Well-Being and Service Use between Latino and Non-Latino Caregivers”-Laura Saldana (first author)
    • “Pre-Pubertal Signs of Future Gender Dysphoria in Youth with ASD”-Eleonora Sadikova (first author)

The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention has been held for more than half a century. The gathering includes 3,500-plus mental health professionals and students who specialize in cognitive and behavioral therapies.

Little girl eating

Daily tasks harder for girls with ASD

Little girl eating

Researchers found that girls with autism struggle with day-to-day functioning and independence skills more than boys.

Researchers at the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Children’s National found something surprising in their recent study of executive function and adaptive skills. Girls, who often score well on direct assessments of communication skills, struggle more than boys with crucial tasks such as making a plan, getting organized and following through, as well as basic daily tasks like getting up and getting dressed, or making small talk.

“When parents were asked to rate a child’s day-to-day functioning, it turns out that girls were struggling more with these independence skills. This was surprising because in general, girls with ASD have better social and communication skills during direct assessments. The natural assumption would be that those communication and social skills would assist them to function more effectively in the world, but we found that this isn’t always the case,” says Allison Ratto, Ph.D., a psychologist in the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders and one of the study’s authors. “Our goal was to look at real world skills, not just the diagnostic behaviors we use clinically to diagnose ASD, to understand how people are actually doing in their day to day lives.”

Conducted by a team within the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders, the National Institute of Mental Health and The George Washington University, the study is the largest to date examining executive function and adaptive skills in women and girls with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

The study collected parent-reported data from several rating scales of executive function and adaptive behavior, including the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, Parent Form (BRIEF) and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-II (VABS-II). The group included 79 females and 158 males meeting clinical criteria for autism spectrum disorders, ranging in ages from 7 to 18 years old. The groups were matched for intelligence, age and level of autism and ADHD symptoms.

Little is known about autism in females

The findings are part of a growing body of research focused on how ASD may affect females differently than males. The ratio of girls to boys with autism is approximately one to three. As a result of the larger numbers of males, existing data is predominantly focused on traits and challenges in that population. This is especially true in clinical trials, where enrollment is overwhelmingly male.

“Our understanding of autism is overwhelmingly based on males, similar to the situation faced by the medical community once confronted with heart disease research being predominantly male,” notes Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., director of the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders and the study’s senior author. “We know how to identify signs, symptoms and treatments for autism in males, but we know very little about unique aspects of it in females.”

The historical lack of specific discovery around how autism presents in females may contribute to misdiagnosis or delay, and prevent implementation of necessary interventions. Such delays can have a major impact on outcomes, as recent research has demonstrated the critical importance of early diagnosis and intervention in ASD.

“Our focus in caring for children with autism is equipping all of them with strategies and skills to allow them to function and succeed in day-to-day living,” Dr. Kenworthy continues. “This study highlights that some common assumptions about the severity of challenges faced by girls with ASD may be wrong, and we may need to spend more time building the adaptive and executive function skills of these females if we want to help them thrive.”

“Enhancing our understanding of how biological differences change the presentation of autism in the long term is crucial to giving every person with ASD the tools they need to succeed in life,” she concludes.

Laura Anthony and Lauren Kenworthy IMFAR

Tools for diverse populations with autism

Laura Anthony and Lauren Kenworthy IMFAR

Laura Anthony, Ph.D., and Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., from Children’s Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders shared their knowledge and research findings at the International Meeting for Autism Research.

Researchers, doctors and parents of autistic children seem to all agree on one truth: If you’ve met one child with autism, you’ve met one child with autism. That fact helps to explain why every spring, researchers and clinicians from around the world gather for the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) – it’s a key opportunity to connect with some of the most respected investigators and stakeholder partners in the research community, and to understand the similarities as well as the differences between autistic populations around the world. Through three days of keynote and panel discussions as well as hundreds of poster presentations on a variety of topics, IMFAR aims to exchange and disseminate the latest scientific and clinical progress in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to this global audience of scientists and trainees.

This year, ten faculty members, staff and volunteers from the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders (CASD) at Children’s National attended IMFAR, and presented on a variety of topics related to better understanding the complex challenges of ASD, especially in diverse patient populations such as Latinos and young adults with gender dysphoria.

Laura Anthony, Ph.D., clinical psychologist within CASD, led a panel session entitled, “Addressing Disparities through Interventions in Diverse Community Systems,” which highlighted four community based intervention projects aimed at tackling the vast disparities that exist in screening, diagnosis, acceptance, inclusion and access to evidence-based care, based on populations.

“Each of these studies takes place in very different community contexts,” says Dr. Anthony, “but they share common themes of addressing disparities, using intensive stakeholder input and community partnerships to increase successful adoption, and achieving sustainability through harnessing the existing community-based resources to administer the interventions.”

The panel presentations featured studies from Children’s National as well as other research institutions:

  • Anthony’s co-investigation of the Sesame Workshop’s online tools called See Amazing in All Children and their effectiveness at providing useful education and resources for parents of children with ASD and at helping parents of non-ASD children feel more accepting of children on the spectrum.
  • Lauren Kenworthy, Ph.D., presented findings from the first study comparing two school-based cognitive-behavioral interventions developed by Children’s National and Ivymount, a school for children with autism, ADHD and other special needs. The interventions target executive function/problem solving and increase children’s availability for learning at school. As the interventions are provided by school staff in the school setting, they hold promise to reach the many children who otherwise have no access to specialized clinical care for these disorders. As evidence of this, approximately half of the children in this large scale project in low-income public/charter schools had not received a diagnosis of ADHD or autism prior to the study.
  • A study of the impacts of a stakeholder-informed primary care program to increase the rate of screening and referral for young Latino children (Georgetown University).
  • An analysis of one program’s efforts to increase the use of evidence-based practices in publically-funded mental health centers (University of California, San Diego; University of California, Los Angeles; and University of Illinois).
Allison Ratto Poster IMFAR

Allison Ratto, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the CASD, presented a poster entitled “Engaging Latino Families in ASD Treatment Research,” the first assessment of this type of effort to bring information and tools to Latino families in a way that makes them accessible.

Despite having vastly different designs, the panel also identified several common learned lessons from the studies. These include the amount of time required to build trusting relationships in previously neglected communities, and the need for creative and adaptive methodologies. Additionally, the importance of including individuals with ASD, their families and people in the community systems that serve them in stakeholder feedback sessions, and the need for specialized adaptations for each community’s unique needs.

Team members also presented ten research posters across a variety of specialty poster sessions, including Allison Ratto, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the CASD, who presented “Engaging Latino Families in ASD Treatment Research,” the first assessment of this type of effort to bring information and tools to Latino families in a way that makes them accessible.

“By developing an adaptive and flexible program, we were able to gain high levels of engagement from Latino families, who previously faced significant barriers to participation. The results show that if researchers take additional steps to build community trust and maintain stakeholder engagement, it is possible to recruit and retain study participants, and ultimately, meet the needs of underserved families.” Dr. Ratto concludes. Her poster was featured in a story in Spectrum News.

“IMFAR is definitely the premier opportunity to dialogue across disciplines and study methods,” says Dr. Kenworthy, who directs the CASD. “We hope that sharing our work at this prestigious meeting brings new understanding for our team and our colleagues in how to best meet the unique needs of psychologically, ethnically and economically diverse patients and families.”