Tracking change: A follow-up on the culturally adapted ¡Iniciando! La Adultez program

Research on interventions for Latino young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their families often faces challenges in long-term engagement. This study aimed to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of the culturally adapted ¡Iniciando! La Adultez program through a long-term follow-up.

A cohort of Latino young adults with ASD and their families who participated in the ¡Iniciando! La Adultez program were followed for six months post-intervention. Participants were assessed at three and six months to evaluate continued engagement and outcomes. Retention rates at each follow-up point were calculated.

The study demonstrated high retention rates, with 48 out of 50 participants (96 %) completing the three-month follow-up and 40 out of 43 participants (93 %) completing the six-month follow-up. Beyond engagement, participants and parents reported significant and sustained improvements in multiple domains, including adaptive behavior, executive functioning, and quality of life for young adults. Parents also reported gains in their young adults adaptive functioning, executive functioning, and transition readiness.

The high retention rates suggest that culturally adapted interventions like ¡Iniciando! La Adultez can effectively maintain long-term engagement within Latino families, a population often underrepresented in research. However, limitations including a small sample size, the potential for bias due to non-blinded data collection, and challenges with missing data that limited more complex analyses should be considered. Future research should prioritize larger, more diverse samples, employ independent raters, and implement robust strategies for managing missing data to strengthen the generalizability and rigor of findings in this area.