B3-A: Reducing Health Disparities For Neurodiverse Individuals by Training Healthcare Professionals and Caregivers

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD) experience major health disparities compared to those without disabilities. Some of these disparities are due to increased rate of fear behavior exhibited by individuals with NDD in response to medical environments and lack of provider training on how to treat individuals with NDD. The presenter will discuss research and practice on approaches to training caregivers and healthcare personnel to work more effectively with neurodiverse individuals. First, the presenter will describe research that aimed to train dentists and medical students to promote compliance when providing routine exams to adults with NDD. Next, the presenter will describe research that aimed to train caregivers of adults with NDD to increase tolerance to routine dental exams and to positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy. Outcomes of this research suggest that large-scale training programs may help reduce health disparities for individuals with NDD.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Participants will be able to describe the barriers to disseminating behavior-analytic practices to caregivers and non-behavioral professionals.
2. Participants will be able to describe evidence-based practices for increasing compliance to routine dental and medical exams

Speakers