A new, online video-training program aims to help families, agency workers, in-home aides —
anyone who interacts with a person who has autism — gain the skills they need to support kids and
young adults on the spectrum.
The state-funded project, launched today, is the first of its kind in the nation, said Shawn
Henry, executive director of OCALI, the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence.
“I think that’s what parents are dying for — to have their children understood,” Henry said.
OCALI developed the $1.2 million ASD Strategies in Action, online at
www.autismcertificationcenter.org, to provide a broad range of information. It
also offers a certification process for those who help people with autism.
Users can click on everything from a 90-minute overview to 15 hours of detailed coursework, with
certification available for each section completed. It’s free to Ohioans; out-of-state users pay
for a subscription.
John Martin, director of the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, said the training is
not mandatory for disability-services providers. But he expects that agencies serving people with
autism will want employees to gain certification, as will many families who hire therapists and
caregivers.
“We think there will be lots of interest on its own,” Martin said. “Without the use of
requirements, we think we’ll see lots of use.”
At the same time, the program has “real utility in terms of the general public,” Martin said.
Its basic components could help grandparents, law-enforcement officers, librarians and others who
might want more knowledge about the increasingly common condition, he said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 68 children has been identified with an
autism-spectrum disorder.
The origins of the autism-training project were contained in the last biennial budget, which
sought to define and tighten credentials for people practicing as behavior analysts.
“The psychology board wanted to make sure that the folks who are writing the plans for people
with autism had adequate training and credentials,” Martin said. “There just wasn’t clarity in
statute about the formal development of treatment plans, who was qualified to do that and who isn’t
.”
The legislation spelled out the requirements for someone to be a certified Ohio behavior analyst
and also directed state agencies to work with OCALI to create a certification program for others
who work with people with autism.
Henry said supporters hope the online training also can help curb some of the employee turnover
within agencies that serve children and young adults with autism.
OCALI’s Melissa Bacon, who has a 15-year-old daughter with autism, said that in-home help is
often hard for families to keep.
“We went through babysitters like water, because they didn’t understand her behaviors,” Bacon
said. “It we could have had someone sit down and say, ‘Please, watch this,’ it might have saved a
lot of turmoil.”
OCALI unveiled the online program at its annual conference, today through Friday at the Greater
Columbus Convention Center. Participants could stop by a display exhibit and see how it works. The
program includes real-people videos, interviews, expert commentary, strategies for communication
and behavioral-intervention practices.
Henry said the idea is “to engage users from the moment they log in.”
Bacon said she hopes the program can lift some of the mystery of autism-spectrum disorder.
“A child with autism does not look any different from any other child,” she said. “So there’s a
lack of understanding about why a child is behaving the way that they are.”
On the Web:
www.autismcertificationcenter.org
rprice@dispatch.com