Dynamic E-Learning to Improve Postsecondary Transition Outcomes for Secondary Students with High Functioning Autism

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
ID: ED-IES-13-C-0026
PI: DEBRA CHILDRESS, ANN SAM
TERM: 05/13 – 01/16

Tools specifically designed to prepare secondary students with high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD) for the transition to postsecondary learning are currently lacking, contributing to their marked under-education and under-employment compared to typically developing peers. Considering the incidence of HF-ASD is now at an historic high, schools have a critical need for feasible, effective tools to help students with HF-ASD achieve postsecondary education. A growing literature underscores the critical role of resilience strategies (coping and self-advocacy skills) for academic and social-emotional adjustment to college as well as persistence in postsecondary education. This SBIR project (Phase I and Phase II) developed a dynamic interactive software specifically designed to enhance resilience strategies needed by 11th and 12th grade students with HF-ASD to successfully transition to postsecondary learning. This technology product enhances students’ preparedness for this transition through a self-paced, online interactive environment with individualized adaptation and pedagogical assistance for scaffolded learning and practice. This cost-effective, easily accessible, and feasible tool provides educators with online professional development and implementation resources, including real-time performance tracking of student progress towards criterion-based goals. This project directly addresses IES’ invitational priority for educational technology products to improve transition outcomes for secondary students with disabilities.

The primary commercial application is a software product employing dynamic, interactive e-learning technology for individualized learning and practice with 11th and 12th grade students with HF-ASD. The product provides schools with a cost-effective, easily accessible means to build resilience strategies specifically needed by students with HF-ASD to successfully transition to postsecondary learning. The product also provides unprecedented professional development tools and implementation supports for school-based providers along with an easy system for tracking and documenting students’ progress towards targeted learning goals. No other available intervention offers the instructional and technical innovations that this product offers.

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DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

Chief of Research and Learning Content

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Expertise

  • autism
  • early development
  • behavioral measurement
  • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

Education

  • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

Selected Publications

  • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
  • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
  • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
  • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
  • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.