Plain Language Summaries of Key Publications
Unstuck & On Target: Elementary School
Unstuck & On Target Logo
What is this article about? Unstuck & On Target (also known as UOT) is an executive function intervention for autistic and other neurodivergent children that helps with flexibility, goal-setting, and planning. It was developed with a team of educators, advocates and clinicians. Unstuck & On Target can be taught in public schools. This allows for more children to have access to the program.
What did the authors do? To find out how well Unstuck & On Target works compared to a social skills program, elementary students were taught one of these programs in small group sessions.
What did the authors find? Students in both programs improved, but students who got Unstuck & On Target had more improvements in problem-solving, flexibility, and planning/organizing. Students who got Unstuck & On Target improved more than social skills participants in their ability to follow rules, make transitions, and be flexible. Children in both groups had similar improvements in social skills.
How will this help autistic people now or in the future? This paper shows that Unstuck & On Target: Elementary School helps kids develop better executive function and helps schools learn how to support kids.
What did the authors do next? They focused on developing Unstuck & On Target for preschool, middle school, and high school as well.
For more information, please visit the Unstuck & On Target website.
Full Citation
Kenworthy, L., Anthony, L. G., Naiman, D. Q., Cannon, L., Wills, M. C., Luong‐Tran, C., Werner, M. A., Alexander, K.C., Strang, J., Bal, E., Sokoloff, J. L., & Wallace, G. L. (2014). Randomized controlled effectiveness trial of executive function intervention for children on the autism spectrum. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55(4), 374-383.
Centering the inner experience of autism: Creating the Self-Assessment of Autistic Traits (The SAAT)
Autism Gold Infinity Sign
What is the purpose of this article? This article is about making the first comprehensive self-report measure of autistic traits written by autistic people to help find people who are missed by the current autism assessment tools. This tool was developed with two autistic people as the lead of the research team. It was also developed with a panel of autistic experts, including both autistic scientists and community leaders.
What did the authors do? The authors started by reading what autistic people had to say about their experience of being autistic. Then they used those ideas to write questions for a questionnaire about autistic traits. Finally, they asked autistic experts to review the questionnaire and made changes based on what they said.
What did they produce? They produced the SAAT. The SAAT is a self-report questionnaire that is accessible, supportive and positive of autistic experiences, and includes the inner experience of autism.
How will this help autistic adults now or in the future? The long-term goal is to create a reliable and valid self-report questionnaire that people 16 years old and older can complete to measure their autistic traits. The SAAT could be important for better understanding the inner autistic experience of autism. The SAAT could also improve how we assess adults for autism and how we research autism.
For a full plain language version of the paper, see our Open Science Framework Page.
Full Citation:
Ratto, A. B., Bascom, J., daVanport, S., Strang, J. F., Anthony, L. G., Verbalis, A., Pugliese, C., Nadwodny, N., Brown, L. X. Z., Cruz, M., Hector, B. L., Kapp, S. K., Onaiwu, M. G., Raymaker, D. M., Robison, J. E., Stewart, C., Stone, R., Whetsell, E., Pelphrey, K., & Kenworthy, L. (2023). Centering the Inner Experience of Autism: Development of the Self-Assessment of Autistic Traits. Autism in Adulthood, 5(1), 93-105.
Everyday executive function
Picture of a Brain
What is this article about? This study is about executive function and how it is measured in autistic people. This paper discusses reasons it is hard to have accurate measures of executive function.
What did the authors find? The authors found that it is hard to measure executive control because:
Human brains take a long time to finish developing, so measuring executive function in little kids with autism might not show every brain difference.
People don’t agree on what executive function means and if it’s one thing or many things, so people measure different things and call it executive control.
Executive function involves lots of mental processes, so it is hard to measure the different pieces of executive control without measuring other things too.
Research and clinical settings are really different than everyday life, so it is hard to measure someone’s everyday executive function in a lab or clinic.
This authors also found that measures that are similar to what someone needs to do in everyday life are better at measuring executive function than measures that are not similar to what someone needs to do in everyday life.
How will this help autistic adults now or in the future? Looking at a lot of different measures may also give more information about a person with autism’s executive function than looking at just one measure. This could help researchers or clinicians better measure executive function in autistic people. This study could help researchers and clinicians understand why we need different ways to measure executive function.
Full Citation:
Kenworthy, L., Yerys, B. E., Anthony, L. G., & Wallace, G. L. (2008). Understanding executive control in autism spectrum disorders in the lab and in the real world. Neuropsychology review, 18(4), 320–338.