Interdisciplinary Training

Sahiti Gilela is a fourth-year medical student at the University of South Florida and an FCIC Trainee under the mentorship of Dr. Elizabeth Perkins. Sahiti and Dr. Perkins were recently invited to present a poster at the AUCD national conference in Washington D.C. pertaining to their narrative review of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare outcomes for people with IDD. Their findings suggest that healthcare disparities remain a prevalent issue and are exacerbated for those at the intersection of IDDs and racial/ethnic minority. They recommend that the federal government should classify IDD populations as medically underserved and appropriately train all healthcare workers to recognize and minimize these disparities. Please click on the link below to view their poster, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: A Narrative Review of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare Outcomes.

Emily Baton is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. in Behavioral & Community Sciences at CFS and a trainee of FCIC. She attended the 19th International Conference on Positive Behavior Support as a presenter. Her presentation summarized her qualitative study examining parents’ thoughts on three different definitions of family engagement used within research and provided the social validity of those definitions. Emily discussed the study's process for conducting virtual focus groups and barriers to the focus group (virtual or in-person) process. She also reviewed the study's limitations and the importance of using geo-location checks when working with a specific population within a geographic area. Click here to read Emily's report.

A word from Emily:

I am very grateful to have had the ability to present at the 19th International Conference on Positive Behavior Support held by the Association of Positive Behavior Support (APBS) in San Diego, California. I spent the first day of the conference attending a workshop entitled Building a Bridge to a New Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts led by Ilene Schwartz & Katherine Bateman from the University of Washington. As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), I found this workshop to be extremely valuable training, which increased my understanding of the new additions to the ethics code for BCBA’s. I had attempted to attend a session similar to this during my first APBS Conference in Miami when the effects of COVID-19 were first being discussed in the media and had shut down the conference while I was in the workshop. I appreciated the experience of being able to come full circle and complete the workshop.

Caroline is a second-year PhD in Social Work student at USF and is currently completing her last semester of coursework. Her research interests include the experiences of women with disabilities, the intersection of disability and other identities, and encounters between police officers and people with disabilities. Caroline wrote a blog for AUCD on Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): Implications for Anti-Oppression and Anti-Discrimination Policy.
Read her blog here.
Click here for more on Caroline Muster.

Angela Makris, Doctoral Candidate in the PhD in Public Health at USF, and Trainee of FCIC, was recently invited to present at the AUCD Annual Conference in Washington D.C. regarding her innovative and exciting research on the use of neuromarketing for the evaluation of communications directed at vulnerable and minoritized populations, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Please click on the link below to review her poster, Using Neuromarketing to Evaluate COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
Angela Makris presents webinar to the AUCD network on Social Media: An Essential Tool in the Democratization of Knowledge Dissemination and Engagement. Social media has a track record of spreading misinformation, yet it can also be one of the most democratic resources we have. The open-access format can reach many in the disability community and enable their voices to be heard, which mainstream media cannot do. The webinar will take a practical approach, highlighting how social media can amplify the voices and knowledge of our community for broader dissemination and engagement. Click here to watch the archived version of this webinar.

Jennifer Hodnett presented at the 39th Annual Convention of the Florida Association of Behavior Analysts (FABA). Her presentation, Improving Treatment Integrity for School-Based Interventions: BST and Beyond, revolved around utilizing the Prevent Teach Reinforce or PTR model to address problem behavior in an elementary school classroom. View video poster presentation here.

Nicholas Scheel recently presented his research on Behavior Skills Training (BST) at the FABA 2019 conference. His research supports the use of BST as a standard training approach to learning how to conduct classroom observations of behavior in an innovative way. View video poster presentation here.

Angela Makris, a trainee with FCIC, completed her Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Social Marketing from the University of South Florida in 2018. As part of her research, Makris presented a poster at the AUCD 2018 conference. Her poster, Social Marketing interventions to Primary Care Physicians to Decrease Health Disparities for Patients with a Disability in a Primary Care Setting: A Scoping Review, was received with great enthusiasm for its line of inquiry and innovative thinking around the topic of application of a systems approach to social and behavioral theory for person-centered health behavior change, prevention, and wellness for people with disabilities.
View video poster presentation here.
Download presentation transcripts here.

Tara Delach, a student-trainee in the School Psychology doctoral program, attended the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule 2 workshop (ADOS 2) at the CARD Conference in January 2018. The two-day workshop trained participants on how to use the ADOS 2 in clinical practice to assess and diagnose autism.
Download Tara's Conference Summary Report.

Elizabeth Lynch, a student-trainee in the ABA program, attended the Applied Behavior Analysis International Conference in May 2017. Her goal was to learn about evidence-based practices in combining ABA and PBS applications. Elizabeth's presentation provides an overview of the sessions she attended and some of the topics she considered important. View Elizabeth's presentation.