Autism Caregiver Coaching in Africa (ACACIA): Protocol for a type 1-hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

While early autism intervention can significantly improve outcomes, gaps in implementation exist globally. These gaps are clearest in Africa, where forty percent of the world's children will live by 2050. Task-sharing early intervention to non-specialists is a key implementation strategy, given the lack of specialists in Africa. Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBI) are a class of early autism intervention that can be delivered by caregivers. As a foundational step to address the early autism intervention gap, we adapted a non-specialist delivered caregiver coaching NDBI for the South African context, and pre-piloted this cascaded task-sharing approach in an existing system of care.

Objectives

First, we will test the effectiveness of the careg

SUBMITTER: Franz L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10786379 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature