Abstract
Law enforcement officers are the primary individuals called and who respond to situations of heightened concern. They make split-second observations and decisions based on how best to react to given safety situations and those involved. Characteristics of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), if not properly understood and reacted to, may quickly escalate a law enforcement officer call in a negative way, making autism training for law enforcement officers imperative. To ascertain what is known about autism training for law enforcement officers, a scoping review was conducted. Five studies met final inclusion criteria. The trainees, context and development of the training, evaluation procedures, and training outcomes are synthesized to provide guidance for future training implementation teams. Areas for future research are presented.
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Notes
Identity first language or “on the spectrum” is used throughout this manuscript to respect the autistic community and a movement toward identity-first language and away from potentially ableist terms (Bottema-Beutel et al., 2021).
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MS and CK conceived the scoping review. MS facilitated the literature search and in collaboration with MW screened and selected the articles. MS extracted data from selected studies, entered data into a chart, and MW conducted reliability. MS and CK drafted the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.
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Sreckovic, M.A., Kenney, C.K. & Wallace, M. Autism Training for Law Enforcement Officers: A Scoping Review. J Autism Dev Disord 53, 3835–3846 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05692-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05692-y