They’re Doing What? A Brief Paper on Service Use and Attitudes in ASD Community-Based Agencies
Open accessAbstract
This brief paper examined the community services delivered to youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a Southern Californian city as a way to better understand ASD service provision and service attitudes. Specific goals of the study were to identify the services being delivered within the area, and how the use, perceived evidence and value attached to these services mapped onto recent systematic ASD service reviews. Forty-six providers completed the ASD Strategies and Interventions Survey (ASD-SIS), which consisted of 21 treatment strategies and 22 interventions packages commonly used with children with ASD. Participants: 1) indicated each treatment strategy and intervention package they use; and 2) rated the perceived evidence and value of each treatment strategy and intervention package they endorsed using. Results demonstrated that a variety of treatment strategies and intervention packages, both with and without an established evidence base, were reportedly being delivered to youth with ASD through community-based agencies. Additionally, a large number of providers reported not knowing the evidence of many treatment strategies and intervention packages. Finally, although no relationship was found between evidence base and use, perceived evidence, and value for treatment strategies, providers reported significantly higher use, perceived evidence and value for established intervention packages. Results demonstrate the need to more effectively disseminate strategies that can support providers in selecting services to deliver to youth with ASD, and underscore the need to better understand the community service landscape on a larger scale.
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Many individuals with ASD do not receive ASD-EBPs.
“Yet, evidence suggests that many individuals with ASD do not receive ASD-EBPs (Brookman-Frazee, et al., 2012; Pickard et al., 2018).”
From Implementation-as-Usual in Community-Based Organizations Providing Specialized Services to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Mixed Methods Study (2021) · cites this paper as Pickard et al., 2018
The Introduction describes difficulty accessing evidence-based services for children with ASD and reports that community providers deliver EBPs inconsistently and at low intensity. Those passages support a gap in access and delivery, but the paper does not establish that many individuals receive no ASD-EBPs; its provider survey reports that EBPs are also being delivered. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredProviders who deliver ASD-EBPs to individuals with ASD also commonly use preference-based practices with unestablished or undetermined evidence for use.
“Additionally, self-report and observational data demonstrate that providers who deliver ASD-EBPs to individuals with ASD also commonly use preference-based practices with unestablished or undetermined evidence for use (Brookman-Frazee et al., 2010; Pickard et al., 2018; Kerns et al., 2019).”
From Implementation-as-Usual in Community-Based Organizations Providing Specialized Services to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Mixed Methods Study (2021) · cites this paper as Pickard et al., 2018
The Results (page unavailable) report that providers in a small specialty-ASD sample endorsed using both established practices and strategies with unestablished or undetermined evidence. The Discussion > Implications also says some practices without established evidence were delivered and perceived as valuable. This paper relies on provider self-report, however; it does not show that providers chose those practices because of preference or provide observational evidence of their use. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredLiterature suggests that ASD-CBOs underutilize or inconsistently utilize EBPs designed specifically for individuals with ASD.
“Currently, literature suggests that ASD-CBOs underutilize or inconsistently utilize EBPs designed specifically for individuals with ASD (Ramanadhan et al., 2017; Brookman-Frazee et al., 2012; Pickard et al., 2018).”
From Implementation-as-Usual in Community-Based Organizations Providing Specialized Services to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Mixed Methods Study (2021) · cites this paper as Pickard et al., 2018
The Introduction reports that providers in community-based mental health clinics deliver EBPs inconsistently and at low intensity for children with ASD. That supports the concern about inconsistent use, but the paper’s own Results find higher reported use of established intervention packages, and the Discussion notes that the study could not measure delivery fidelity. The evidence therefore does not establish underutilization or inconsistent delivery across ASD community-based organizations generally. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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Cites
Advancing a Conceptual Model of Evidence-Based Practice Implementation in Public Service Sectors
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“…leadership, adopter characteristics) and outer contextual factors (i.e., sociopolitical context, funding, interorganizational networks; Aarons et al., 2012) that may influence the dissemination and implementation of EBPs and that may enable de-implementation of unsupported practices…”
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Flagged first, then by citations
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Cited by
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Drahota, A., Meza, R. D., Bustos, T. E., Sridhar, A., Martinez, J. I., Brikho, B., Stahmer, A. C., & Aarons, G. A. (2021) · Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research · doi:10.1007/s10488-020-01084-5 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Pickard, K., Meza, R., Drahota, A., & Brikho, B.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- San Diego State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Drahota, Amy
- Venue
- Journal of Mental Health Research in Intellectual Disabilities
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2017-12-08
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 111-123
- ISSN
- 1931-5864 (ISSN-L)
- 1931-5872
- PMC
- PMC6200345
- OpenAlex
- W2772392754
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 0.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Locations
- Journal of Mental Health Research in Intellectual Disabilities (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (K01 MH093477)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family and Disability Support Research
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, community-based services, evidence-based practice, treatment options, intervention package, provider attitudes, service utilization, autistic youth, evidence dissemination
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