Building Better Bridges School Transitions RCT

Building Better Bridges (BBB), will evaluate an intervention designed to support the needs of students with autism who are transitioning from either preschool to elementary school, or from elementary to secondary school. In this randomized controlled trial, the investigators will randomly assign a total of 160 families (40 families/site, across 4 sites, over 2 years) to one of two intervention groups: BBB Transition Passport Only Group (Comparison) or BBB Intervention Group. Both groups will receive the BBB Transition Passport, which include the Transition Checklist, Student Snapshot, Parent/Caregiver Guide, and Student Guide. In addition to receiving the Transition Passport, the BBB Intervention Group will also receive coaching support to implement these resources. The coach will be a member of the research team who will introduce the resources to the family, briefly teach them fundamental information about the transition process, provide brief coaching phone calls, and help parents identify an appropriate person at the school or district who can work with them to complete the Student Snapshot.

The research staff will first recruit interested schools, and school administrators will identify potential teachers who may have eligible students. If the teacher agrees to participate, he/she will send the study flyer home to parents where parents can either call the study phone line to learn more, or can fill out the study interest portion of the flyer and turn it in to their teachers. Parents who fill out the interest sheet will be contacted by the research staff. Interested parents can also contact research staff. All parents will receive a screening over the telephone to determine eligibility, which will include an Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) over the phone and will ask if their child has received a diagnosis of Autism by the administration of an Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) or any other official diagnosis. The investigators will accept an ADOS diagnosis within one year for children in preschool and within three years for students transitioning to secondary school.. If an ADOS or any record of an official diagnosis is not provided, the research staff will schedule a time to administer the ADOS to determine eligibility. We will also ask if the child has a record of a cognitive test like the Stanford Binet-5. If parents do not have a record or if it has been over a year since the pre-school child or over 3 years since the older child has had one, the research staff will also schedule with the parents to administer it around the same time as the ADOS.

After the initial phone screen and verification of autism diagnosis, the parent will be consented and then will complete baseline T1 measures. Pre-transition teachers will complete T1 measures as well. Schedule of measures can be found in the Outcome Measures Section.

Following enrollment into the study, the child will be randomized to one of two treatment groups, BBB Comparison Group(Control) or BBB Intervention Group.

Families randomized to the control group will only have access to the BBB Transition Passport, which consists of the Transition Checklist, Parent Guide, Student Guide, and the Student Snapshot. A hard copy of these tools will be given to them. We will also provide them with a link to download them online through LiveBinder (online website).