The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Therapy Utilization Among Racially/Ethnically and Socio-Economically Diverse Autistic Children.
J Autism Dev Disord
; 53(3): 918-933, 2023 Mar.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2230453
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
The purpose of current study was to evaluate change in hours of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy utilization for autistic children during the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first three months of the pandemic (crisis phase), and the following 9 months of the pandemic (mitigation phase). Additionally, this study aimed to evaluate if change in therapy utilization differed based on child race, ethnicity, and primary payer of services. Finally, we aimed to identify potential mechanisms of ABA therapy disruption by interpreting findings using an extended version of Donabedian's structure-process-outcome model.METHODS:
Retrospective clinical data on client demographics and therapy utilization (n = 283) were collected from ABA clinics in California and analyzed with four piecewise growth multi-level models.RESULTS:
We found that therapy utilization dropped during the first three months of the pandemic (-10.65 h/month; p < .001) and increased during the following 9 months (2.39 h/month; p < .001). Moderator analyses revelated that Asian, Non-Latinx and school-district funded children had significantly different trajectories of change in therapy utilization compared to white, non-Latinx participants and private insurance funded participants, respectively.CONCLUSION:
Findings suggest that utilization of ABA therapy was disrupted for a full year following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and that child race/ethnicity and primary payer influenced the degree to which autistic children were impacted by service disruption. These findings have implications for autistic children who lost therapy access during key developmental periods and for the ABA care delivery system.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Autistic Disorder
/
Autism Spectrum Disorder
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Child
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Autism Dev Disord
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S10803-023-05905-y
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