USU Offers New, Free Professional Development for Autism Service Providers

In an effort to improve Utah’s statistics — and the chances autistic children have for success — the Institute for Disability Research, Policy & Practice will offer a new ECHO professional development project focused on autism.

When it comes to early identification of autism, Utah lags behind all other states in the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM). Data from 2020 shows just 10 children per 1,000 identified with autism by 48 months, while the network average is more than 21 per 1,000.

But the number of children identified with autism in Utah nearly doubled by age 8, showing that the prevalence is there, but many children are not identified before they start school.

A delay in identification means autistic children are often years into school before they receive services.

The Institute for Disability’s Project ECHO is part of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University.

The Autism ECHO sessions begin Sept. 25 and they are available to educators, health care providers, special service providers, case managers, administrators and families. Registration is free, and the Autism Council of Utah has provided funding.

The ECHO sessions will extend training in early autism identification to all of Utah, including rural and frontier areas of the state, said IDRPP’s Janel Preston. She leads Project ECHO, including its latest training to help participants improve early identification.

Preston has seen the effect training can have on early identification since 2008, when she began work at the IDRPP as Utah’s Act Early ambassador. Without training, she said, professionals were less comfortable bringing the topic up with parents. As their knowledge increased, those conversations became easier.

“I always think that knowledge is power,” she said.

Project ECHO is a lifelong learning and guided practice model that provides professional development and offers best practices. IDRPP currently has five ECHO projects that provide professional development to practitioners in Utah, on topics including early intervention, mental health, substance abuse and autism. More than a third of IDRPP’s ECHO participants are from rural areas.

The ECHO model uses hub-and-spoke knowledge-sharing networks, led by expert teams who conduct learning sessions about evidence-based practices via videoconferencing. It is especially helpful to service providers who are far from a population center.

You can find out more on the IDRPP’s Autism ECHO page.

The ADDM is an 11-state network that includes Utah. It is “the only collaborative network to track the number and characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in multiple communities in the United States.”