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Author: Paige Diamond | Major: Biology, Psychology, Spanish | Semester: Summer 2024
In the Fall semester of 2023, I joined the Family Community Intervention (FCI) Lab, a lab whose mission is to advance child and autism research and care through the inclusion of neurodiverse voices, a culturally informed lens, and family and community-based systems. As Biology, Psychology, and Spanish major on the pre-medical track, I wanted to do my Honor’s College thesis on a project that involved me working with people. Under the guidance of Dr. Lauren Quetsch, I joined the project of Julia Kiefer and Emily Shah, two graduate students in the FCI lab, who are examining an adapted form of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) for autistic youth (PCIT-Autism) in order to improve emotional regulation and child-parent relationship, and reduce externalizing behaviors. This PCIT-Autism was adapted with the guidance and feedback from autistic individuals and caregivers of autistic youth.
With the counsel of Dr. Quetsch, Julia, and Emily, I began to write my thesis on the effects of caregiver mental health on their autistic child’s PCIT outcomes. Mental health is something that has always been important to me and I wanted to examine the effects that a caregiver’s level of anxiety, depression, adverse childhood experiences, and broad autism phenotype have on their child’s outcome in the adapted PCIT-Autism treatment. The broad autism phenotype describes a range of autistic traits that are observed more frequently in families that have an autistic family member.
We used included questionnaires to measure the levels of each of these measures independently in the pre-treatment assessments for caregivers to complete. The other pre-treatment assessments measured the behavior of the child and the closeness of the child and caregiver. These measures were then assessed after 8-weeks of treatment as well. We hypothesized that that children of caregivers with higher levels of anxiety, depression, adverse childhood experiences, and broad autism phenotype would see less improvement after treatment.
The pre-treatment part of the study started in late spring and some of the summer. During the pre-treatment process, I assisted with making phone calls to the participants so they could fill out consent forms online while the form was read to them. Leading up to the summer I assisted with putting the assessments into the Red-Cap system, which allowed me to get a better idea of how the different behaviors that a child can exhibit are measured, and what different behaviors can contribute to a diagnosis of autism. Along with those tasks, when a child would come in to get their autism diagnosis, I would sit with caregivers while they filled out the pre-treatment measures, answering any questions that they may have.
The 8-week treatment occurred during the summer, lasting from June to August. During this time, the parents would come into the lab once a week for a coaching session that was coached by Julia and Emily. During this time there was childcare available. Helping out with childcare was one of my roles this summer and was arguably my favorite part of research thus far. Not only was it just enjoyable to spend time with them once a week, but I feel as though I was able to learn more about how autism can present itself in children, how to better my communication and problem-solving skills, and I developed a deeper understanding for how others experience and interact with the world differently.
After completing my undergraduate degree, I hope to go into either pediatric medicine or psychology, and up until this point I have had many medical clinical experiences but not very many pediatric psychology clinical experiences. This research opportunity presented me with an abundance of opportunities for intellectual, personal, and professional growth. My time at the research lab would not have been possible without the help of the Honor’s College. The participants were given a total of $150 for completing all of the treatment and assessments, and the Honor’s College provided us with the funds to pay the participants who might have been less likely to participate had they not been paid.
Due to the lack of PCIT that has been adapted specifically for autistic youth, I feel as though this research is of high importance in the field of psychology. Throughout the summer caregivers would tell us how excited they were because of improved closeness with their child, or because of enhanced communication with their child. Getting to spend the summer watching the children’s communication skills and behavior improve was an experience that I am so grateful to have the opportunity for. Although PCIT-Autism is not widely studied yet, I am excited and hopeful for what future research could bring.