Navigating the Transition to Adulthood: A Dual Language Mobile App for Latino Youth with ASD and Their Families - Project Summary/Abstract This project aims to address the critical need for culturally adapted, evidence-based, and accessible interventions to support Latino young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as they transition to adulthood—a period fraught with challenges, including the loss of services and increased responsibilities. Latinos face significant disparities in access to care compared to their White counterparts, particularly during this pivotal life stage. To bridge this gap, the project will develop a bilingual mobile health (mHealth) application (app) called ¡Iniciando! la Adultez, derived from the evidence-based ¡Iniciando! program, tailored for Latino young adults with ASD across varying levels of support needs and their Spanish-speaking parents. Adults with ASD feel more comfortable using online modalities of communication, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) enhanced mHealth apps. Unfortunately, researchers have yet to develop a bilingual mHealth app for young adults with ASD with varying support needs and their Spanish-speaking parents. Thus, by following the Integrate, Design, Assess, and Share (IDEAS) framework, in Aim 1a the present study focuses on developing and refining several bilingual mHealth app prototypes through collaborative brainstorming sessions with a cross-sector team. The cross-sector team includes the UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School Information Technology UXS Innovation team and our Community Advisory Board (CAB), which includes Latino young adults with ASD and their Spanish-speaking parents. The app will feature personalized lesson plans, practice exercises, values and goals tracking, and an AI-driven “Coach” to support goal setting, with wide accessibility on both iOS and Google Play platforms. Aim 1b involves rigorous accessibility, usability, and quality testing of the mHealth app with Latino young adults with ASD and their parents. This will include alpha and beta testing phases to ensure that the app meets the diverse needs of its users. Feedback from these tests will guide iterative modifications to improve the app's content, features, and design into developing a fully functional minimum viable product (MVP) of the mHealth app based on participant feedback, which will then undergo final review by the CAB. Aim 2 will conduct a feasibility trial of the ¡Iniciando! mHealth MVP app with Latino young adults with ASD and their parents to evaluate its usability, feasibility, and we will acquire metrics (e.g., missing data, completion %) on measures of mental health, quality of life, and adaptive functioning. This project is significant in its potential to offer a scalable and sustainable solution to the health disparities faced by Latino young adults with ASD and their families. By providing an evidence-based, bilingual intervention as a bilingual mHealth app, this project will contribute to reducing systematic barriers to therapy services, while improving the quality of life and mental health of not only young adults with ASD but also their Spanish- speaking parents This research aligns with the objectives of NICHD to enhance the transition to adulthood for marginalized racial/ethnic populations through innovative interventions.
