Study

Facing Your Fears: Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (FYF:IDD): Moving an Adapted CBT Intervention for Autistic Adolescents with Anxiety from the Research Lab to a Clinical Setting

This study trains outpatient clinicians to implement Facing Your Fears: Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (FYF:IDD), a 14-week group CBT intervention for autistic teens with intellectual development disability and interfering anxiety.

Why this Research Matters

FYF:IDD will be delivered as a clinical service at Children's Hospital Colorado, with each group consisting of 2-3 clinicians, 4-5 teens, and their caregivers. Following a clinician training workshop, we will assess training satisfaction, intervention feasibility, satisfaction of FYF:IDD, and clinician feedback on implementation. Treatment fidelity will be evaluated, along with teen and caregiver satisfaction. Teen anxiety, emotion regulation, and challenging behavior will be measured pre/post intervention

Who can Participate

All Ages

Teens will be (1) between 12-18 years of age; (2) have a confirmed educational identification of autism and IDD, based on educational records (IEP) OR medical diagnoses of autism and IDD based on medical records; (3) have adaptive behavior disabilities and (4) clinically significant symptoms of anxiety, defined by clinically significant anxiety elevations on the ADAMS. Teens will be excluded from the study if they (1) have challenging behavior that is not compatible with a group format, (2) are not able to attend at least 10 of the 14 FYF:IDD sessions inclusive of telehealth and in person sessions, and (3) have caregivers who do not speak English