1 / 10

Parent-Nominated Symptoms as an Outcome Measure in Autism Intervention Research

Parent-Nominated Symptoms as an Outcome Measure in Autism Intervention Research. Vanessa Dabel Mentor: David S. Mandell, ScD. Project Overview. Autism Instructional Methods Study (AIMS) 3-hour battery of testing every September and June

cosmo
Download Presentation

Parent-Nominated Symptoms as an Outcome Measure in Autism Intervention Research

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Parent-Nominated Symptoms as an Outcome Measure in Autism Intervention Research Vanessa Dabel Mentor: David S. Mandell, ScD

  2. Project Overview • Autism Instructional Methods Study (AIMS) • 3-hour battery of testing every September and June • Apply Parent-Nominated Symptoms strategy to a subset of subjects • Students who are flooring

  3. Hypothesis • The parent-nominated symptoms measurement will be correlated with clinician ratings of improvement and will provide an ecologically valid, statistically reliable outcome measure for behavioral intervention trials

  4. What are parent-nominated symptoms? • Symptoms that parents and caregivers identify in their children that are of most concern to them

  5. Significance • It is difficult to measure symptoms and changes in symptoms over time for a group of children with ASD using a single measure • Standardized scales may fail to reflect real change important to the individual family (Arnold et al., 2003) • Addition of parent-targeted symptoms questionnaire in pharmacological studies proved to be successful (Arnold et al., 2003) • Ecological validity

  6. Aims • To seek information from parents for which clinicians may rate in order to track the changes in Parent-Nominated Symptoms • to turn qualitative data into a quantitative measure • To test the feasibility of refining and replicating this strategy in a behavioral study

  7. Methods • Conduct phone interviews in August and November 2009 • Questions focused on communicative and social impairments as well as maladaptive behaviors • “How often?” “How long each time?” “How many hours a day?” “How does it interfere with daily activities?” • Select group of clinicians to rate the symptoms • Qualitative data  Quantitative measure • Examine whether there is change over time

  8. My Role • Drafting documents to be submitted for IRB approval • Project Description, Verbal Consent Form, Phone Script • Responsible for conducting phone interviews with parents and caregivers • Verbal consent • Collecting and analyzing data

  9. Lessons Learned • Becoming more familiar with the IRB process • Gaining more experience in conducting autism research • Better understanding of the measures that are used • Exploring research interests as they pertain to my professional development

  10. Acknowledgements • Mentor David S. Mandell, ScD • AIMS Team • Center for Autism Research (CAR) • SUMR Scholars • Joanne Levy and LDI Thank you! Any questions or comments?

More Related