The development and utilization of a diversity advisory board in an intervention to support social skill development for autistic transition-aged youth.

Abstract

Recent discourse has identified significant issues surrounding the lack of diversity in autism-related research. However, recent efforts have called for the regular use of diversity advisory boards (DAB) in autism-related research to improve the inclusivity of underrepresented and marginalized groups included in the growing autism scholarship. This article outlines the development and implementation of a DAB to support the design and evaluation of an innovative intervention, WorkChat: A Virtual Workday. Specifically, WorkChat focuses on improving knowledge and practicing conversational skills with virtual customers, coworkers, and supervisors to support workplace interactions for autistic transition-age youth. Here, we share guidelines for developing, utilizing, and maintaining a DAB, as well as recommended practices and future implications for implementing DABs in autism services research while using the WorkChat DAB as a case study. The goal is to support the further use of DABs as a means of significantly improving the inclusion of underrepresented and marginalized identities including racial, gender, and sexual minorities, and individuals with disabilities in autism services research.Lay AbstractAutism research often does not include enough people with different identities such as different races, genders, and sexualities. Sometimes, support for autistic individuals does not help everyone equally. They often work better for white, straight autistic males. This article will talk about how we are trying to make autism research more diverse. We will share how we are using a group of diverse advisors to help with research. We will also talk about how to use these advisor groups in the future for autism research.