This webpage outlines the diversity and cultural competency position of TASH, an advocacy organization for people with disabilities. Also, TASH provides information about resources to promote cultural competency and proficiency for families, guides for educators and administrators to assist them in better achieving cultural competency, and fact sheets on meeting the unique needs of diverse cultural populations who have disabilities.
View the Website – Diversity and Cultural Competency.
This website provides the details for the cultural framework that the National Center for Cultural Competence uses to underpin their activities and resources. This website also explains cultural competent guiding values and principles, defines linguistic competence, and provides a list of guiding values and principles for ensuring language access for all populations.
View the Website – Conceptual Frameworks/Models, Guiding Values and Principles.
This webpage describes what Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention entails. This site also summarizes relevant research that explains the gains/limits of knowledge about this early intervention and provides recommendations and resources about this treatment.
View the Website – Early Intensive Behavior Intervention.
The Sibling Research Consortium is a collaborative effort of researchers from several universities to conduct research on life span experiences and outcomes for siblings that belong to families that include individuals with disabilities; to build capacity for conducting this and similar research; and to make policy and practical recommendations based on these findings.
View the Website – National Sibling Research Consortium.
This booklet explains to parents how to support children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. It provides suggestions to parents on how to support behaviors as well as to help children with ASD understand why other children without ASD may act differently.
View the Handbook – Supporting Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
The Sibling Support Project is dedicated to the life-long concerns of brothers and sisters of people who have health, developmental, or mental health concerns. This organization works to increase the peer support and information opportunities for brothers and sisters of people with special needs and to increase parents’ and providers’ understanding of sibling issues. To do this, the Sibling Support Project trains local service providers on how to create community-based peer support program for young siblings and hosts workshops and website for siblings of all ages, parents, and providers to discover more about siblings’ concerns.
View the Website – Sibling Support Project.
Rogers, S., & Vismara, L. (2008). Evidence-based comprehensive treatments for early autism. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 37(1), 8-38.
This journal article reviews early intervention papers in the autism field from 1986-2006 to analyze what kinds of treatments are most efficacious in early autism, what variables moderate and mediate treatment, and the degree of improvements to be expected.
The authors found five key issues: First, while it appears that young children with autism, as a group, may show significant developmental gains as a result of early intervention, it is difficult to figure out which treatment is best because there are no comparative studies. Second, some treatments (Lovaas and pivotal-response training) appear to work consistently, but it is difficult to say this for other treatments because of a lack of strong treatment design or because these have not been independently reproduced. Third, it is still difficult to say with any certainty how much an early intervention can help a child with autism. Fourth, interventions that have been studied in journal do not tend to focus on children from different cultures or lower socioeconomic statuses. Finally, the research needed to say which intervention is most beneficial can be difficult because early interventions have to address every developmental area through a lifetime.
Download the Academic Research – Evidence-based Comprehensive Treatments for Early Autism (PDF).
Reichow, B., & Wolery, M. (2009). Comprehensive synthesis of early Intensive behavioral interventions for young children with autism based on the UCLA Young Autism Project model. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39(1), 23-41.
This journal article investigated the effectiveness of early intensive behavioral interventions for young children with autism. The particular intervention investigated is the UCLA Young Autism Project method (the Lovaas method). The finding of this journal article suggest that EIBI is an effect treatment for children with autism; however, the author notes the limitations of the study (i.e. number of cases looked at; the tendency for things to be overstated by the analyses). The author also notes that while it seemed that EIBI helped some children, this intervention did not suit the needs of all the children.
Download the Academic Research – Comprehensive Synthesis of Early Intensive Behavioral Interventions for Young Children with Autism based on the UCLA Young Autism Project Model (PDF).
The website of the RRTC on Aging with Developmental Disabilities: Lifespan Health and Function located at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The website contains a number of publications, briefs, and other resources related to aging with developmental disabilities.
View the Website – Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Aging with Developmental Disabilities.
This report analyzes findings and results from Washington State’s transition project to encourage employment for young adults with developmental disabilities. This report finds that the people who participated in the project had better individual employment outcomes, higher wages, more working hours, and a higher likelihood to earn wages for work than those people who did not participate in the project. Additionally, this report identified best practices in promoting collaborations between schools and the adult service system as well as best practices for addressing individual and family expectations during the project.
Download the Report – Jobs by 21 Partnership Project Report for 2008 (PDF).
