Launching ‘Move the Needle’ – A conference to advance early detection and intervention

I want to share with you the excitement I felt at this week’s strategic planning meeting for our new Move the Needle Initiative. Autism Speaks brought together experts in the field of early detection and intervention for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with representatives of federal agencies such as the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to create a national plan for lowering the age of diagnosis for ASD and improve access to high-quality early intervention services for all children with autism.While researchers have made great progress in developing screening and diagnostic tools, the average age of diagnosis remains stubbornly close to 5 years, even higher among some ethnic minorities. Even after their children are diagnosed, many families lack access to the best early intervention therapies.Our meeting was a great opportunity for exchanging ideas between disciplines. We heard from family members, pediatricians, policy makers, clinicians and researchers who are evaluating the best ways to put effective strategies and tools into pediatrician offices and the broader community. Representatives from all part of Autism Speaks attended to help us identify ways to harness our powers together to “Move the Needle.”Experts from outside of autism, including one from the field of breast cancer, shared their knowledge of effective ways to improve early detection and access to services. On the first day of the meeting, we heard about the latest findings on screening, diagnosis, early interventions, access to services in underserved communities and innovative technologies that have the potential to improve access among underserved children and their families.On day two, we split into working groups to develop solutions to the barriers that have interfered with the delivery of earlier diagnosis and treatment in our communities. This included taking the first steps toward creating a new agenda for collaboration between public and private organizations. We brainstormed ideas on how this could be done as soon as possible by building on the tremendous progress of recent years.Though I have only begun to pull together our thoughts and ideas, I want to share a few important issues that floated to the top of the conversation:Family empowerment was a common theme. Studies clearly show that greater engagement and empowerment on the part of families decreases parental stress and increases satisfaction with services. Likewise, we know that children who have the best outcomes tend to be those whose parents are actively engaged in treatment. We discussed several strategies to empower families.We explored a concept we call task shifting, to help address service shortages in many communities. We recognize that, through training, we can tap professionals such as nurses, “birth-to-three” service providers and community volunteers to provide services such as screening and family follow up. This approach can provide families with more professionally delivered services than, say, the typical pediatrician can offer.We agreed that we must harness the potential of technology. Smart phones, iPads and video conferencing are all ready to be developed as tools for improving access to services – especially important for underserved populations such as children in rural areas.Recognizing that pediatricians play a central role in autism screening, we discussed many ideas for enhancing pediatrician awareness and skills, including their ability to connect families with the services they need. These are just a few ideas that came out of this inspiring meeting. It provided a great start to realizing our long-term vision of creating a national agenda through private-public partnerships that focus our investments in research and services in ways that will lower the age of diagnosis and improve access to quality early interventions for all children.Your feedback means the world to us. Please leave a comment and send us an email toScienceChat@autismspeaks.org.