Bridging the Research to Practice Gap in Autism Spectrum Disorder Treatment

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) impacts at least 1 in 68 individuals (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016) and though there are many treatments that can positively impact the condition, the adoption of evidence-based practices in community settings is slow (Dingfelder & Mandell, 2011). In partnership with a community-based service provider, this dissertation addresses three goals: 1) to critically evaluate measurement tools commonly used in community-based evaluation, identify strengths and shortcomings; 2) to evaluate a community implementation of Pivotal Response Treatment (Koegel, et al., 1989) using a new measurement technology - the Language Environmental Analysis System (LENA Research Foundation, 2016) as an applied example of improving measurement at the local level; and 3) demonstrate how the adoption of evidence-based practices is not just an empirical process, but a social one, that requires significant stakeholder involvement and engagement to encourage innovation diffusion and provider adoption. In combination, the studies that comprise the dissertation demonstrate how researchers can contribute to narrowing the research to practice gap in the context of community-based autism treatment.