An Initial Development and Evaluation of a Culturally Responsive Police Interactions Training for Black Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism interventions designed or adapted for the Black/African American population: A systematic review

LAY ABSTRACT

Black/African American people in the United States who have a diagnosis of autism often experience service-related disparities, including not having the same access to high-quality autism and related care (e.g. behavioral interventions), and are less likely to have sustained treatment engagement across their lifespan. While interventions to support autistic people are typically designed to be universal, there is concern that these interventions not being tailored to the Black/African American population could reduce the overall impact due to a lack of responsiveness to the needs of the Black children or families who receive the intervention. The current systematic review summarized research on interventions developed for the Black autism community, including Black children with autism and their caregivers. After a comprehensive, systematic search, eight peer-reviewed publications were identified that met the study's inclusion criteria. The majority of the interventions were tailored to Black caregivers of children with autism. Autism researchers demonstrate different strategies for engaging Black caregivers in culturally responsive ways; however, more research into these interventions is needed in order to assess their effectiveness. In addition, there are still limited interventions adapted to be culturally responsive to Black/African American autistic people. The Cultural Adaptation Checklist framework is a novel approach with promise to become the standard for adapting interventions to meet the needs of culturally diverse groups. Cultural responsiveness is an important facet in the development of interventions that produce optimal outcomes for the range of diversity in the United States and is an important step to achieving equitable autism research practices.

Informing care pathways and policies for children and youth with Indigenous perspectives to advance Canada's National Autism Strategy

In Canada, most services for Autistic people are provided by provincial and territorial governments. However, support for Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) are under federal responsibility and are outlined by a set of treaties and agreements with the Crown and a few regional governments. This patchwork results in barriers in service access and navigation challenges in many under-resourced communities, including under-diagnosis and potentially life-threatening outcomes. Designing equitable policy structures and processes would reduce harms and meaningfully interface with Indigenous and other racialized communities. The objective of this Policy Practice Review is to provide a framework for the discovery of appropriate care strategies addressing the conceptualization of autism in Indigenous Peoples and to understand the interactions between racialized Autistic peoples and the Criminal Justice System. First, we conducted environmental scans of publicly-accessible government services available in Canada pertaining to autism in Indigenous communities and the justice system, and explored the dissonance with beliefs and perceptions of autism in Northern Indigenous communities. Second, we focused on the interactions of Indigenous and other racialized populations, with an emphasis on Autistic children and youth with the justice system, an interaction that is often life-altering, downstream, and detrimental to health and wellbeing. The implications of this work include identifying the need for Indigenous-led knowledge and policy recommendations for Canada's upcoming National Autism Strategy, informing the need for culturally appropriate multidisciplinary care and facilitating the coordination between health and social services for these communities.