Un Camino Hacia Delante (A "way" forward): A Productive Path for Spanish-Speaking Families

Background:

One of the fastest growing ASD populations in the United States is the Latino population (Baio et al, 2018), yet several studies have documented that Latino children have less access, lower levels of utilization and worse quality of health care services when compared with White children (Liptak et al. 2008; Parish et al. 2012). In a study that examined Latino parents’ perspectives to barriers to diagnosis, parents listed 3 categories as barriers-community knowledge and perception of ASD, parent and family factors and health care system barriers (Zuckerman et al. 2013b. Magaña et al (2013) along with other studies of Latino families of children with ASD also found that a lack of information in the community was an important factor that created a barrier to service use.

Objectives:

The objective is to provide an exemplar pathway for Spanish-speaking families’ to support the learning needs of young children with autism, looking at the quantitative and qualitative impact the pathway.

Methods:

Caregivers who speak Spanish as their primary language and/or identify themselves as Hispanic were offered several options to help support the needs of their children.

As part of a funded research study, primary care practices who serve Spanish-speaking families were asked to screen their patients ages 9 to 20 months with an online screening tool available in both Spanish and English. After completing the screening, families were encouraged to enroll in a web-based portal giving them access to online resources in their primary language. Children with a positive result for autism on the screening were invited to participate in a no-cost diagnostic evaluation.

In addition, a support group for families conducted in Spanish was offered at the center where the evaluations are conducted. This led to a funded study to provide a monthly training program for Latino families led in Spanish by a bilingual SLP on social communication strategies for children with ASD.

Results:

Data will be provided to show the number of families who completed the screening in Spanish, number who accessed the web-based resources, and those who participated in the support group and in the training.

To date 333 families have completed the online screening in Spanish, 132 enrolled in the resource portal. Thirty of the children screened received a positive outcome for autism. We also had an average of 8 to 14 Spanish speaking caregivers attend a monthly parent support group. In addition, 6 Spanish-speaking families enrolled in a study on social communication strategies for their children with ASD. Of the 6 families, 4 of them came in through a community based screener.

Conclusions:

Offering screening, evaluation and support services in the primary language leads to possibly narrowing the diagnostic gap for Latino children with ASD, increasing Latino parental engagement, improving better understanding of ASD, and more focus on seeking EI services. We will examine whether there is an increase in caregiver ability to support and advocate for their child’s needs, a decrease in parental stress, and an increase in the confidence to mentor other families.