Virtual Care

Virtual Care: Outreach Services to Nebraska Schools

In response to the disparity in services and teacher training, experts at the Munroe-Meyer Institute (MMI), in collaboration with Autism Action Partnership, have begun a pilot project to show that highly effective and empirically supported interventions can be implemented with high fidelity in rural and urban schools by leveraging the latest web-based technologies. Our long-term goal is to show that our web-based training and consultation procedures can be effectively and efficiently used to improve services to many students with autism when they are implemented on a large scale.

Our goals are to use effective and preferred school-based services for students with autism in Omaha and to provide innovative solutions by addressing the following primary barriers:

• most teachers receive little or no didactic training in teaching students with autism using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA); and
• there is a shortage of autism experts available to develop and monitor behavioral interventions with teachers.

As a result, most students with autism do not receive the most effective interventions currently available.

Outreach Services to Spanish-Speaking Families

In 2010, The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 13.1% of the Omaha’s population was Hispanic or Latino. Scientific studies have reported that Latinos experience several health disparities, including inadequate access to health care due to language and cultural barriers. To address these health disparities, the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders is currently collaborating with local organizations to deliver service and training that benefit Spanish-speaking families in their own language, and in a culturally appropriate fashion.