ICI Shines at Research Day
ICI researchers Andrea Castillo (left) and Adele Dimian (center) discuss a poster with visitor Quinn Oteman (right) during the recent CEHD Research & Innovation Day. The poster summarizes a project by ICI and the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB) about using digital tools to intervene with children on the autism spectrum. Dimian authored the poster with ICI's Jessica Simacek and Damien Fair, co-director of MIDB.
Several teams from the Institute on Community Integration recently presented critical ongoing work to improve the lives of people with disabilities, from documenting the prevalence of autism to reimagining how to assist young adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) who are transitioning from school to adult life.
The March presentations were highlighted at Research & Innovation Day , an annual event of the University of Minnesota’s College of Education + Human Development that showcases the role of academic research in daily life.
“Research Day is a wonderful opportunity to highlight work happening here and around the world that has the power to meaningfully improve the lives of people experiencing all kinds of barriers,” said Renáta Tichá, co-director of ICI’s Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on HCBS Outcome Measurement.
Tichá’s team is evaluating a Minnesota Youth in Transition Framework to provide educators across the state with guidance on transition planning, curriculum, and collaboration among students, families, and agencies. Providing customized and meaningful transition services is challenging, particularly in rural areas, Tichá said.
“We work closely with school districts to understand their specific barriers to implementing a proposed transition framework,” she said. “The idea is to localize the framework in ways that are meaningful to each district.”
Several rural schools across the state have no distinct physical building for transition curriculum and activities, such as a wood shop or a bakery, Tichá said, so schools must build relationships with community partners. Getting transition students out into the community to develop their job skills is an excellent learning opportunity, she said, but it takes a lot of relationship-building to provide customized options for students in far-flung rural communities.
“It was an exciting research day, and we spoke with many graduate students who had pertinent questions about our work to understand how cultural beliefs about disability influence the services and outcomes of people with disabilities,” said Charity Funfe Tatah Mentan, an ICI research associate. She also connected with students and other researchers about potential collaborations to expand the work around cultural beliefs to new communities.
Other highlighted work included:
Autism prevalence: The Minnesota-Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (MN-ADDM) Project calculates the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in children ages 4 to 8 within portions of the state and reports this data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ICI’s Jennifer Hall-Lande and Amy Esler, a professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics, lead this work.
Autism outreach: A study using telehealth as a delivery method for behavioral intervention for 100 children ages 1 to 5 recently diagnosed with autism shows promising results. High completion rates and low levels of attrition were encouraging, but researchers discussed variability in attendance and potential barriers in access to the model. The work is led by ICI’s Jessica Simacek and Esler.
State testing: Another study, presented by Yi-Chen Wu, examined participation patterns among students with disabilities in state assessments.
Participant-led research: Establishing a partnership between researchers and the community, this work will guide research priorities in the study of UBE2A syndrome. Researchers include Caroline Roberts, a MNLEND fellow and postdoctoral fellow and Laura Chubb, a doctoral candidate in the University’s Educational Psychology department.
The work, funded by a seed grant through the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, is partnering with a global online support group of caregivers of individuals with UBE2A to identify community research priorities on the newly identified, rare genetic syndrome.
“I always look forward to CEHD Research Day as an opportunity to hear about the many fascinating projects happening in our community and share what I have been working on with my colleagues,” Roberts said.
Muscular dystrophy/spina bifida: Building on ICI’s longstanding prevalence study work, researchers are estimating the prevalence of muscular dystrophy across the lifespan. This national study uses three public datasets and one from an employer-sponsored insurance database. Julie Bershadsky, Sandra Pettingell, Sheryl Larson, Jennifer Hall-Lande, Libby Hallas, Catharine Riley, Tiebin Liu, and Jennita Reefhuis collaborate on this work.
MNLEND: The Minnesota Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (MNLEND) project is focused on developing the next generation of leaders in practice, policy, and research related to neurodevelopmental disabilities. The Research Day poster highlighted a sampling of research activities in which MNLEND fellows are engaged, including early intervention protocols.