Abstract
Measurement-based care (MBC), an evidence-based approach that has demonstrated efficacy for improving treatment outcomes, has yet to be investigated in clients with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The current paper investigates the use of MBC in autistic (n = 20) and non-autistic (n = 20) clients matched on age, sex, and presenting problem. Results of change score analysis indicated that utilizing routine symptom monitoring can enhance treatment evaluation. Autistic clients participated in significantly more sessions, made significantly less progress, and were less compliant with MBC than non-autistic clients. Though hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated no significant differences in treatment slope, results indicated moderate effect size. These results inform the use of MBC in community clinics, highlighting policy implications and need for targeted measurement.
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Notes
Identity-first language is used throughout to be consistent with clinical and research recommendations (e.g., Kenny et al., 2016).
For one measure used in this study, the CODD, clinical means or standard deviations have not been published. As a result, the means and standard deviations were derived from the clinical sample at the institution of the first author. Participants’ data included in the current manuscript were excluded from these calculations.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the undergraduate research assistants and clients at our training clinic who assisted with and participated in this research. We would also like to acknowledge funding from the Varda Shoham Clinical Science Training Initiative Grant that allowed us to purchase our measurement feedback system. We also want to acknowledge our measurement feedback system, Owl Outcomes (now Owl Insights at www.owlinsights.com), for their excellent technical and intellectual support. The authors have no financial stake in Owl Outcomes.
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TCM contributed to conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing-original draft, writing-review & editing, visualization, project administration. AJG contributed to methodology, validation, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, writing-original draft, writing-review & editing. AVD and LA contributed to writing-original draft, writing-review & editing. YM contributed to formal analysis, writing-review & editing, supervision. LDC contributed to software, investigation, resources, data curation, writing-review & editing, supervision, funding acquisition.
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McFayden, T.C., Gatto, A.J., Dahiya, A.V. et al. Integrating Measurement-Based Care into Treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Insights from a Community Clinic. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 3651–3661 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04824-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04824-6