3C Institute
AUTISM SPEAKS
ID: 8488
PI: MELISSA DEROSIER
TERM: 01/13 – 10/14
While most students experience heightened stress during the transition to postsecondary learning due to greater academic, social, and financial pressures in an unfamiliar environment, these stressors are amplified for individuals with high functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD). The proposed project will result in a highly innovative computer-based resilience intervention that families and students can use to build resilience strategies for coping with the transition to college. The proposed intervention will adapt the research-based Student Curriculum on Resilience Education for typically developing students (SCoRE; www.SCoREforCollege.org), to develop a customized version for students with HF-ASD.
Specifically, SCoRE-ASD will build students’ understanding of and resilience in multiple domains shown to decrease stress and increase academic achievement, including self-care, social connections, cognitive style, and personal/academic goal setting. SCoRE-ASD will be designed as a self-paced, interactive online course integrating motion graphics, animation, video, self-assessments with personalized reports, journaling, and other research-based learning methods. The web-based nature of this intervention will translate into faster, more cost-effective dissemination greatly increasing accessibility.
The proposed project will accomplish five specific aims:
1) Conduct usability testing of the SCoREcurriculum to develop a blueprint for intervention development based on the needs of students with HF-ASD;
2) Develop the SCoRE-ASD intervention with enhanced content (i.e., additional modules and activities) and interface (i.e., pacing, graphics) keyed to the needs of individuals with HF-ASD;
3) Integrate resources and activities through the Online Family Center, designed to empower parents to support their child;
4) Assess acceptability and feasibility of implementing the SCoRE-ASD intervention with individuals with HF-ASD (aged 17-25) and their parents, as well as piloting data collection and reporting procedures;
5) Ready the product for broad-scale dissemination. SCoRE-ASD will provide students with necessary skills to cope with personal, social, and academic challenges during the transition to college thereby increasing the persistence in, and completion of, postsecondary education for students with HF-ASD reducing the serious problem of under-education and under-employment in these individuals.
Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.