Association for Behavior Analysis International

With increased prevalence of autism combined with its core complex behavioral characteristics (DSM-V), practitioners are more likely to work on interdisciplinary teams to address these challenges (Brodhead, 2015). One effective component that leads to better health and educational client outcome is Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice (IPEC) (WHO, 2016). The WHO presents a framework for action based on four core competency domains to be adopted by health and education systems to improve health outcome. Benefits to collaboration include skill building, shared responsibility in client outcome, brainstorming activities with shared roles and responsibilities, adoption of discipline-specific skills, designing comprehensive interventions that maximize client outcome (Cox, 2012), improved fidelity (Kelly and Tincani, 2013), increased understanding and mutual respect of each profession's value offerings, and building partnerships (Brodhead 2015). Challenges to collaboration include disagreements to treatment selection and plan, the type of skill expertise required, theoretical and cultural differences. Obstacles to collaboration may have negative effects on client progress and may lead to delayed treatment implementation and hence client access to effective treatment. This panel facilitates discussions regarding challenges to collaboration from a cultural international perspective and provides suggestions for effectively resolving these conflicts to improve health and education client outcome.

All professional disciplines and providers, and educators, at all levels, involved in service delivery for ASD, and parents.