SkillTalk: Communication Training around Sexual Health Topics for Parents of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder - ABSTRACT
SkillTalk: Communication Training around Sexual Health Topics for Parents of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face a range of impairments in social interaction and
communication settings, including those involved with sexual communication and behavior. Like their
neurotypical peers, adolescents with ASD need comprehensive sexual education to learn and practice healthy
sexual development and relationships, and to prevent negative sexual outcomes such as unwanted pregnancy,
STIs, sexual abuse, and inappropriate sexual behaviors. Unfortunately, many adolescents with ASD are
engaging in sexual activities and behaviors with little or no sexual education until a crisis occurs. Targeted,
evidence-based sexual education resources for ASD youth are limited and not routinely offered in schools. While
experts recommend that all parents serve as the primary sex educators for their children, parents of adolescents
with ASD face additional, complex challenges. These include uncertainties about how and when to communicate
about sex, fears of inciting inappropriate behavior, and worries about their child’s psychosexual functioning, such
as limited awareness of public and personal boundaries. In addition, parents are providing less sexual health
education, with limited topics, and at a later age than is provided to neurotypical youth. To address these issues
and provide support to parents, this Phase I SBIR project will develop and test a highly focused microskills video
library called SkillTalk ASD. The resource will build and support the skills that parents of ASD youth need to
offer sexual education to their children. This mobile friendly site will provide video modeling of critical parent
microskills for teaching sexual education to ASD youth in a way that is engaging, instructionally sound, and
encourages repeat and continued use. When complete, the site will include approximately 500 video clips,
grouped into skill clusters, that visually demonstrate a microskill in 30 – 90 seconds. In addition, the resource
will include 60-100 companion Making Connections youth videos offering visual modeling of social/sexual
communication scenarios to help facilitate parent discussion and that ASD youth can watch multiple times for
re-enforcement. Phase I will test feasibility by: 1) conducting formative research to further understand the needs
of parents of ASD youth; 2) developing the content for and producing 30 micro-kills within two skill clusters and
6 Making Connection videos; 3) developing the prototype web site, including establishing the technology
infrastructure; and 4) conducting a pilot evaluation to determine the possible impact of the resource on
communication skills and knowledge with a small number of parents of ASD youth. In phase II, the project will
complete development of the remaining parent microskills videos and Making Connections youth videos,
concluding with a large-scale evaluation of SkillTalk ASD.
