New Book Chapter by the Africa Autism Treatment Network (AATN) Team

Challenges and opportunities of implementing early interventions for autism spectrum disorders in resource-limited settings: A South African example

Improving access to care for young children with autism and their families, particularly those living in resource-limited settings, is a complex challenge that requires innovative solutions and multi-sectoral action. The Africa Autism Treatment Network (AATN) is a committed group of independent CARA researchers that focuses specifically on early autism interventions in Africa. The team shared their experiences by writing a chapter for the newly published book called “Starting at the beginning: laying the foundation for lifelong mental health (edited by Matthew Hodes, Susan Shur-Fen Gau and Petrus J. de Vries).

The authors offer a new approach to tackle the complex challenge by considering five fundamental aspects - selecting effective interventions, ensuring effective implementation, establishing an understanding of the local context and setting, being guided by a deep knowledge of the intervention beneficiaries, and using a pragmatic evaluation approach.

While the authors focus on work done in South Africa and on the African continent, the chapter should be of direct relevance to clinicians, researchers and policy-makers who work in other low- and middle- income countries, other resource-limited settings, and in culturally diverse contexts. If you are interested in a pre-print of the chapter, please write to liezl.schlebusch@uct.ac.za or request on ResearchGate.

The book is also available on Amazon.