The Efficacy of Person-Centered Planning for Young Adults with ASD in Transition

Background:  For many young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the transition into adulthood (e.g. educational, employment or independent living) can be particularly stressful. Positive transition outcomes therefore necessitate careful transition planning. Person-Centered Planning (PCP) refers to a number of different transition planning approaches, all of which share the belief that the person at the focus of the planning is also the primary authority on his or her life direction. Although PCP is widely used in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities, there has been little evidence on its efficacy for individuals with ASD.

Objectives:  Our objective was to study the efficacy of Person-Centered Planning for individuals with ASD as they make the transition to independent living. Our aim was to re-evaluate the data every 3 months for 1 consecutive year, in order to identify the most discriminating factors of PCP leading to a positive transition outcome.

Methods:  We recruited six young adults with ASD (two females, four males; mean age 22.5 years) before they made the transition to independent living. All participants were residents of the living lab ‘E-Xperience’, where several health innovations in care for individuals with ASD are brought together. Measures were obtained of autism conditions (AQ), quality of life (QoLC), self determination (AIR), psychological well-being (SCL-90), social network analysis (MSNA), and goal attainment scales (GAS). These questionnaires will again be administered at 6- and 12-months follow up. Further, we aimed to undertake comprehensive assessments of the different components of the PCP process and re-evaluate this information every 3 months for 1 consecutive year in order to identify the most discriminating predictors of outcome. We used the MAP (Making Action Plans; Forest & Snow, 1992) as a procedure for PCP. This procedure was evaluated by means of a checklist “How Person-Centered was this planning process” (Hagner et al., 2012).

Results:  All PCP sessions were completed and between 3 – 5 goals were set for each participant. The number of people involved with the implementation of the plan varied between 3 and 6. Preliminary linear regression analyses revealed a strong inverse correlation (-0.92) between the number of people involved with the implementation of the plan and the satisfaction with the plan 3 months after the PCP session (F = 22.1; p< 0.01). Additional 6- and 9-months follow-up data together with in-depth qualitative information from personal interviews will be presented at the conference.

Conclusions:  Implications for this study include an improved understanding of the efficacy of Person-Centered Planning for individuals with ASD as they make the transition to independent living. Highlighting these issues elicits the potential to produce more rigorous research into the effectiveness of PCP for individuals with ASD and make a more efficient translation from research to practice. Preliminary results at three months follow-up indicate that group size during the PCP session negatively impacts satisfaction with the plan. Follow-up on these data and on the comprehensive information from questionnaires and interviews will be presented at the conference.