Congratulations to MSU Autism Lab members Karís and Diondra who presented a talk called “Family Training under the Michigan Medicaid Autism Benefit: Understanding provider and caregiver perspectives on engagement.” This was a mixed methods project that explored perspectives on parent training within the Michigan Medicaid Autism Benefit, which provides ABA services to Medicaid-enrolled children with ASD. They used data from Medicaid billing claims for 879 children, surveys from 97 providers and 226 caregivers, and interviews with 13 providers and 20 caregivers.
Providers expressed high perceived family-level barriers, while caregivers reported relatively few barriers and high motivation to participate. Their findings support efforts to increase the use of evidence-based family training strategies for children with ASD through more structured and comprehensive approaches that support best practices in engaging and collaborating with parents.
