Episode 5: Sleep problems in people with ASD and effective treatment

Hello Dear listeners, I am happy to announce the next podcast episode on the topic “Sleep problems in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and effective treatment” with a BCBA-D Kylan Turner, who is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Behavior Analysis at Simmons University and a BCBA Dierdre Smith. She has worked with individuals with developmental disabilities and their families since 2003.

Dr. Turner specializes in researching interventions provided through caregiver training to address prevalent sleep and feeding behavior problems in children with autism. Her area of interest is in conducting evaluations of interventions to address challenging behavior. She is the author of the book “Functional Behavior Assessment: Case studies and practice”.

We discussed different important ideas about sleep problems and effective treatment:

• What kind of sleep problems children with ASD can have and how these problems can effect the development and behavior of a child and the quality of life of the family;
• How specialists and parents can assess sleep problems and objectively measure their improvements;
• What kind of antecedent-based and consequence-based behavioral interventions can be used to manage sleep problems;
• The importance of establishing good sleep hygiene not only for children with ASD but for everyone;
• Different examples from our practice and possible strategies to establish better sleep routines, etc.

I hope that we were able to answer your questions! Thank you for listening to this episode!