Electronic documents

This Policy Brief calls attention to the challenges faced by youth and young adults with mental health needs during their transition to adulthood and provides information to help policymakers at the state and local level develop and improve service delivery systems for this population.

Schools today face the challenge of providing appropriate services to a diverse and increasingly numerous student population diagnosed with ASD. In order to achieve this goal, evidence-based practice is essential in the schools. To assist school professionals as they strive to help these students reach their potential, the National Autism Center has produced a comprehensive 245-page manual, Evidence-Based Practice and Autism in the Schools. The manual outlines relevant topics, including the current state of research findings, professional judgment and data-based clinical decision making, values and preferences of families, and capacity building. Each chapter sets a course for advancing the efforts of school systems to engage in evidence-based practice for their students on the autism spectrum.

The Communication Matrix is an assessment tool designed to pinpoint exactly how an individual is communicating and to provide a framework for determining logical communication goals. It was first published in 1990 and was revised in 1996 and 2004 by Dr. Charity Rowland of Oregon Health & Science University. It was designed primarily for speech-language pathologists and educators to use to document the expressive communication skills of children who have severe or multiple disabilities, including children with sensory, motor and cognitive impairments.