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In Search of Culturally Appropriate Autism Interventions: Perspectives of Latino Caregivers

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Abstract

Most evidence-based autism spectrum disorder (ASD) interventions are tested with primarily White, mid-upper class, English-speaking populations, despite the increase in Latino children with ASD in early intervention programs throughout the United States. Unfortunately, interventions that are incongruent with a target population’s culture may be relatively ineffective. This mixed-methods study explored how culturally appropriate, feasible, and acceptable Latino caregivers perceived intervention models, strategies, and targets. Survey data were compared for 28 Latino and 27 non-Latino White parents of young children with ASD. Further, 20 Latino caregivers participated in focus groups to describe their challenges, perspectives and preferences for intervention strategies and models, and unmet needs from providers. These findings underscore the need for culturally modified interventions for Latino children and families.

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Acknowledgments

This project was funded by the Carolina Center for Public Service through a Community Engagement Fellowship. The Autism Research Registry, which assisted in recruitment, is supported by a grant from The National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (P30-HD003110) to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We would like to thank each family who participated in this study as well as the research assistants for their hard and tedious work. We would also like to thank our co-facilitator, Diana Wilkenson for her work and dedication to this project. This project was presented in a poster at the International Meeting for Autism Research, 2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Allied Health Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 321 S Columbia St., Chapel Hill, NC, 27516, USA

    Michaela DuBay, Linda R. Watson & Wanqing Zhang

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  1. Michaela DuBay
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  2. Linda R. Watson
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  3. Wanqing Zhang
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Contributions

MD contributed to the conception and design of the study, completed data collection, analyzed and interpreted the data, and drafted the manuscript; LRW contributed to the conception and design of the study, assisted with the interpretation of results, and critically revised the manuscript; WZ contributed to the analysis of results and critically revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Michaela DuBay.

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DuBay, M., Watson, L. & Zhang, W. In Search of Culturally Appropriate Autism Interventions: Perspectives of Latino Caregivers. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 1623–1639 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3394-8

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