Grant Search

In the Center for Procedural Excellence at our hospital, we encounter children with ASD who need procedures, painful or non-painful, requiring compliance and cooperation. A lack of knowledge on the part of the staff about the unique strengths and challenges of these children and the most effective ways to communicate with them, results in stress to an already stressed child. Sometimes this leads to an escalation in difficult behaviors resulting in the use of physical or chemical restraints and injuries. We plan to develop educational modules to train staff in preparing and communicating with children who have ASD, as well as manage difficult behaviors. We also propose to develop simple, age-appropriate tools that will help parents and staff familiarize these children with and gain mastery over the experiences and challenges they will encounter during the visit and the medical procedure. These best practices will be disseminated widely to other institutions and the medical community.