During Hispanic Heritage Month, we will take a look at NIDRR funded projects that deal directly with the Hispanic/Latino disability community. Here is the first of such projects:

The project Examination of the Use of a Spanish Version of the Online and Applied System for Intervention Skills (OASIS) Training Program with Parents of Children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder is a Field Initiated Project funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) that falls within NIDRR’s participation and community living funding priority. This particular project is based in the University of Kansas Medical Center’s Center for Child Health and Development and is led by Linda S. Heitzmen-Powell, PhD.

The objective of this project is to address the deficit in access to and training for Spanish-speaking parents who have children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The researchers are adapting the Online and Applied System for Intervention Skills (OASIS) Training Program and using it to teaching parents who speak Spanish and have a child with ASD how to implement empirically based interventions with their child. Program development will go through five stages: (1) initial development of the project, (2) translation and adaptation of training resources for Spanish speaking caregivers, (3) evaluation and revision throughout the program, (4) full evaluation and revision of the program, and (5) final analysis and preparation for dissemination. During the program, parents will be trained in the techniques discussed each week with their child and will receive guidance and immediate feedback from a bilingual clinician who is trained to implement OASIS. The effectiveness of the program will be evaluated using three values: knowledge and skill fluency of the parents, their child’s adaptive behaviors, and reported family quality of life. Once the program is complete, the parents will fill out exit surveys so that they can provide feedback in relation to program improvement and so that they can relate any problems they experienced during the training, such as cultural and/or language barriers. This project aspires to expand parents’ knowledge, enhance parental use of effective therapy techniques, and augment children’s adaptive behaviors.

There are no documents related to this project at this time. If you want to learn more about this project, please visit their website at http://www2.ku.edu/~lsi/research/projects/Buzhardt_J/examination_spanish_oasis.shtml. For information about the original OASIS project, please visit their detailed project record in the NIDRR Program Database.