Internship

About the Internship

I am lucky to take part in two research projects this year:

The goal of our research is to evaluate the best population for Tele-health autism spectrum disorder assessment. This work matters because of the normative long wait times between concerns and evaluations causing parents and children go can end up waiting up to a year or longer for assessment appointments which are necessary to get outside help from schools and/or daycares.
The goal of our research is to look at the differences between children with and without autism in response to the open ended questions within autism assessment for comparison to determine what should be considered correct dependent on the typical age range. This will help clinicians to be able to compare a child to what a typically developing 4-year-old should be able to understand about topics compared to a child with autism.

Autism Assessment Expectations

This Video will show how a typical Autism assessment goes. Including questions for both children and parents. It is important to understand that these types of assessments can be hard to get and take a long time to schedule. That is the importance of telehealth. Within the video, it also mentions that the children will be asked questions about school and friendship. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, so the second research project includes looking at how to narrow down what a clinician needs to look for within the answers that children give.

Purdue Autsim Research Conference!

In April, I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Autsim Rsearch Conference at Purdue University.

While there, I witnessed many amazing speakers Including Judy S. Liu PhD and Zachary Warren PhD. I enjoyed learning so much about the many dirrections that Autism Reseach is going, and hearing the history of one of our projects main research points, the TAP.

Project Summaries!

Project 1: We are completing a literature review of the TELE-ASD-PEDS (Telehealth Autism Assessment) post-Covid 19. We are gathering information regarding the use of the TAP including the necessity of follow-up appointments, clinician satisfaction, and population differences for use. Within this project, we have scanned scholarly articles and written summaries of the information included to best understand the use of the TAP from many different studies perspectives.

Project 2: Within this project, we are looking at open-ended questions that are found on the ADOS-2 Module protocol (Autism assessment for children with complex language skills). These questions involve concepts such as relationships and feelings. There are no “right” answers to these questions, so this study is looking at the answers given, ages of children, and diagnoses given to better understand how different children respond to these questions.

Project 3: We are also in charge of creating and publishing the PCIT (Parent Child Interaction Therapy) monthly newsletter. This includes newly licensed therapists, important data and training updates, as well as other helpful information for the people within this community.

Workplace

Throughout my college experience I have gained many skills and strengths that will continue to contribute to both my internship site and my professional career. I have a large willingness to learn and am motivated to keep up with all kinds of work loads. I have taken large course loads during college and have managed to not only keep up with work, but excel due to my motivation and time management. Because of my previous research experience, I have also learned a lot about adaptability and problem solving. While working with a small group on research in Music Therapy, we were working with a lot of new technology that both my supervisor and the other researchers had never encountered before. Working together we were able to adapt the research methods we were using to better fit the software available and continue with the research at a better pace. All of these skills will help me to complete internship work. They can help me adapt to work that needed to be accomplished as well as keep up with a fast paced environment. I am excited to work in this internship to grow both professionally and academically and to learn more about the diagnosis and treatment of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Being able to explore these areas in an environment that promotes learning and growth will hopefully help my me narrow down my future career plans. I also believe that the experience will be good to learn about how psychological research is conducted, so that I could potentially learn how to conduct these types of research projects on my own some day soon.

During my internship with LHSI, I have had the opportunity to learn so much. I have learned a lot about flexibility. As an intern, I have worked on two seperate research projects and several additional projects to gain insight both into the workplace and possible future projects. At the beginning of my internship, my work primarily included solo work such as data entry and annotated bibliographies. Now I am a bigger part of the team as I take on new projects such as preparing nationwide newsletters and even having the opportunity to sit in with several assessments. I feel as though more trust has been put in me to complete bigger tasks as I have become a more involved member of the team. My contributions have allowed many of the projects to continue on a timely basis.

Successes and Challenges

I have felt successful as an intern many times this year. One instance that specifically comes to mind was during a clinical evaluation of a child. I had the opportunity to sit in during this evaluation with a supervisor, take notes, and try my best to code the outcomes of the evaluation just as the doctor was as well. We returned to her office and compared notes of how each of us coded symptoms that we observed from the child. I had gotten many wrong and we discussed why she had coded her findings differently than mine, but during one aspect, she said she had seen no behavior from the child that fit the specific dynamic. I asked if something that I had seen would count, and if not, why? My supervisor looked at my wide eyed and smiled. She said that absolutely counted, and that she couldn't believe she had missed that. I was beyond excited. I was not only happy to contribute, but happy I was catching on to parts of the research as well.

Another circumstance was within training. I attend monthly training sessions with the research team, graduate students, and doctors. While there, we watch videos of autism evaluations, and code our observations as such, solo at first, and then at a group to compare our results. The most recent comparison, I got many more answers correct than on that first evaluation I was able to sit in. I not only understood the concepts being discussed, I was able to participate fully and compare my answers to those around me. I would call this learning a huge success. I still wasn't perfect, but I was able to see how much I had improved right in front of my eyes.

I was lucky enough to be given a chance to work on a newsletter for Parent Child Interaction Therapy. It is sent out nationwide to people who have completed their training. It includes important information such as additional trainings, new information, fun monthly challenges, or supplies that can be helpful towards therapy. I have felt extremely sucessful as I have been given this project in its entirety. After being given the information, or finding it from several sources, I put it all together to be able to be sent out. I am proud of the work I have done.

I have had many challenges this semester as well. One day I was scheduled to sit in on an evaluation, but the previous night I got very sick. My whole family eneded up with some sort of stomach bug and I was up all night. The next morning, I woke up at 12:00 when the meeting was scheduled for 9 am. I felt horrible. I immediately emailed my supervisor and apologized for missing the meeting and explained the situation. They were very understanding, but I still promised to try and give them notice if I am not feeling well in the future.

Another challenge I have had this semester involves remote work. While working from home one day, I attempted to open an article I needed to read and my computer crashed. I desperately tried to login again and could not. I emailed my supervisor from my phone and told them the situation and then walked over to UITS to see if they could help me. They helped me troubleshoot what was happening and I ended up being able to get back to work the next week. Going forward I now know how to troubleshoot some of these issues on my own, but if I need help I know where I can go to get it.

I was not expecting a new challenge to present itself in work I had been completing all year, but was supprise when given a new version of the same task to feel completely overwhelmed. I have been writing annotated bibliographies for several months. Recently, I was given more articles to continue writing. When I opened the link that was sent to me, it included close to 50 articles to write about. I was beyond overwhelmed and struggled to figure out where to start. After a couple weeks of trial and error, I talked to my supervisor about the issue I was having. She helped me trouble shoot how to break down the task into smaller sections to figure out how best to complete it. With her help, we were able to make the task much less overwhelming and I have been working on it since.

References

Berkshire Healthcare. (n.d.). What to expect during an autism assessment. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1be8NSAt-XA

Page updated

Report abuse