The Cultural Adaptation of a Transition Program for Latino Families of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

During the transition to adulthood, effective and culturally relevant supports are critical for families of youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is a dearth of documented program development and research on supports for Spanish-speaking Latino families during this life stage. The present work describes the cultural adaptation process of an evidence-based transition program for Latino families of youth with ASD. A model of the actions necessary to meaningfully conduct a cultural adaptation in this context is described. After implementing the culturally adapted program titled Juntos en la Transici on with five Spanish-speaking families, parents reported high social validity of the program through surveys and interviews. The cultural adaptation process followed in this work is important for the further development of programs that address the transition needs of Latino youth with ASD and their families. Our impressions may also be useful to those who aim to develop culturally sensitive and ecologically valid multifamily group intervention programs for families from cultural and linguistic minority groups.

Cultural Acceptability of ABA Parent Training for ASD

“…Cultural, as well as linguistic adaptation of evidence-based interventions are needed in order to increase acceptability with non-English speaking populations [15,[18][19][20][21][22]. For example, adaptations for Latinx parents have been shown to improve recruitment and retention [15,18], increase parent satisfaction and lower parental stress [23], improve parenting practices and reduce children's challenging behaviors [15] and increase engagement [13].…”

Autism and intersectionality: Considerations for school‐based practitioners

“…Focusing exclusively on the United States, studies of ethnicity and minority group status suggest some potential complexities for both diagnosis and treatment. In a series of studies of Hispanic children, Kuhn et al (2020) and Magaña and Vanegas (2017) have noted some important limitations of commonly-employed diagnostic instruments as well as the need for cultural adaptation of intervention programs. In another study of rates of autism in Texas (Palmer et al, 2010) rates of autism among Hispanic children and youth were significantly lower than in the non-Hispanic white population (even when socioeconomic factors were taken into account).…”

“…Diagnostic and screening instruments have often not been well studied in other cultures and, when they have, the results have been mixed (see Freeth et al, 2014;Guo et al, 2019;Oien et al, 2017;Volkmar et al, 2021). Similar issues arise with implementation of culturally sensitive intervention programs (Barraza, 2020;Kuhn et al, 2020;Sandoval, 2021;REF;Ishizaki et al, 2021).…”

Treatment Intensity: Considering Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability Who Have Complex Communication Needs

“…This includes the awareness of cultural differences (Gardiner & French, 2011). Unfortunately, developing evidence-based and culturally sensitive interventions has presented significant challenges (Bernal & Sáez-Santiago, 2006), and there has been a dearth of intervention research to address specific cultures and languages (Kuhn et al, 2020;Perera et al, 2020). While culturally diverse populations continue to proliferate, there remains a lack of understanding of how contextual fit and treatment acceptability vary among cultural groups (Njardvik & Kelley, 2008;Rothschild, 2018).…”