Access for Autism Team
Author: Alicia Liu | Major: Nursing | Semester: Spring 2023
Hello, I’m Alicia Liu and I’m a senior undergraduate student majoring in Nursing at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. In the future, I plan on becoming a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. In the Spring of 2022, I was looking out for any projects pertaining to pediatrics, animal-assisted therapy, and/or the healthcare of minority populations. Dr. Susan Patton introduced me to Dr. Michele Kilmer and her dog, Gryffin. Dr. Kilmer is known for her work with pediatric autism and for creating the “Access for Autism.” This program advocates for pediatric autistic patients receiving care in primary care clinics. At the time, she was looking for students who wanted to start a research project about the effects of cultural influences on age of ASD diagnosis, also known as autism spectrum disorder. I immediately wanted to pursue this project because I think it’s important to understand how cultural competency can affect healthcare outcomes especially if one is considering working in the healthcare field.
In the Fall of 2022, I found myself working along with Dr. Kilmer, Ansley Mathews, and Isabella Davis on a literature review of our project. There are three objectives of our research. Ansley is determining the factors of social determinants of health, cultural beliefs, and ASD stigma which hinder access to care for ASD identification in minority populations. Isabella is identifying patterns of child development among minority populations using developmental, social/emotional, and adaptive functioning assessments. I’m researching the effect of primary care provider cultural competency on the identification and diagnosis of developmental delay and ASD among ethnicities. Dr. Kilmer has been a great mentor to work with and has helped us in multiple ways.
This semester, we spent time finishing up our proposal and began the data collection process. I created two Qualtrics surveys for participating healthcare providers to complete which Dr. Kilmer sent out. One was for informed consent and the other is a reasoned action approach questionnaire that assesses clinician behaviors, intentions, beliefs, and capabilities pertaining to the care management of pediatric ASD patients. Questions consisted of multiple choice, agree/disagree scales, and numbered scales. For example, some questions asked about the career history of the provider, if training prepared them for evaluating pediatric ASD, if they wanted to seek training related to the management of pediatric ASD, how they engage in ASD screening, if they feel capable of identifying ASD and discussing the care for pediatric ASD patients, and more. About 50 healthcare providers enrolled in the study and will take the survey and work to improve their cultural competency skills. The outcomes of this project will be evaluated and presented in the Fall of 2023.
Throughout this process, I learned a lot about the role cultural competency plays in ASD diagnosis. I’ve found that a lack of cultural competency has resulted in poor healthcare outcomes and increased healthcare costs. Training in cultural competency could potentially address stereotypes, implicit bias, and improve knowledge of various cultures and how they could relate to them in conversation to decrease the time of ASD diagnosis. There were some challenges I came across while finishing up the proposal and setting up the surveys. It was a bit difficult finding sources published within the past 5 years but after spending lots of time searching the depths of various databases, I was able to find a great amount of scholarly research. I also never utilized Qualtrics surveys before but thanks to the help of Dr. Kilmer and the university’s Qualtrics brand ambassador Ling Ting, I was able to navigate the components of Qualtrics. This semester we did not travel to an archive or conference but we’re hoping to in the near future. I’m excited to analyze the data we gather in the Fall and apply it to my future career as a nurse. With the help of the University of Arkansas Honors College Research Grant, I will be able to explore more about the healthcare minority populations receive and how cultural competency affects ASD diagnosis. After graduation, I plan on taking the NCLEX, joining a nurse residency program at my hometown’s hospital or a children’s hospital nearby, and becoming an advocate for minority populations by improving my cultural competency skills.