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Rationale, Development, and Description of a Brief Family-Centered Service Provision Model for Addressing Children's
Collin Shepley1, Sally B Shepley1, R Allan Allday1
1Department of Early Childhood, Special Education, and Rehabilitation Counseling, University of Kentucky, College of Education , Lexington, KY, USA.
Insights
Pediatricians can now access a new brief, family-centered service model for children with autism exhibiting severe behaviors. This model provides function-based assessments and treatments, improving access for rural families.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric healthcare
- Behavioral science
- Autism spectrum disorder interventions
Background:
- The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends functional behavioral assessment before psychopharmacologic treatment for severe behavior in children with autism.
- Access to these services is limited for families in rural or geographically isolated areas.
- Pediatricians face challenges in providing developmental guidance due to service inaccessibility.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe a novel, brief, family-centered service provision model.
- To address the inaccessibility of behavioral services for families in underserved areas.
- To present the implementation of this model at a university-based hospital.
Main Methods:
- Development of a brief, family-centered service model through interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Utilized research-based practices with ecological validity for function-based assessment and treatment.
- Implemented the model within a university-based hospital serving rural populations.
Main Results:
- A collaborative model was successfully developed and implemented.
- The model provides function-based assessment and treatment services.
- The approach is designed to be accessible to families in rural communities.
Conclusions:
- The developed model offers a feasible solution to improve access to behavioral services.
- This family-centered approach supports pediatricians in managing challenging behaviors in children with autism.
- The model demonstrates a practical application of evidence-based practices in a real-world clinical setting.
Abstract:
For families with children with autism that engage in severe behavior, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that functional assessment and management of environmental variables contributing to severe behavior occur prior to the prescription of psychopharmacologic treatment. Despite the inclusion of this recommendation in guidance articles published in pediatric journals for more than a decade, access to such services may not be feasible, in particular for families living in rural and geographically isolated communities. Given that families often view pediatricians as their first line of professional guidance for addressing challenges surrounding child development, the inaccessibility of appropriate services for managing healthcare is a concern for many pediatricians. To address this issue, a brief family-centered service provision model was developed through a collaboration between healthcare providers at a university-based hospital and Applied Behavior Analysis program faculty of the affiliated university. The hospital served many families living in rural areas of the state; therefore, the model utilized research-based practices with evidence of ecological validity for providing function-based assessment and treatment services. Within this manuscript we present a description of the model and its current implementation at a university-based hospital. For a data-based evaluation of the clinic and model, we refer readers to https://osf.io/qx8ak.
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