I remember calling my mom in tears when my sons were in elementary school, saying, “I feel like I have to throw out everything I know about being a good parent to Copeland to be a good parent to Quincy. How can my kids be so different?” My mom laughed. She said, “You are one of five…how do you think I feel?!” My mom has helped me learn that being a parent means constantly seeking new information, understanding new ideas, navigating new challenges, and learning new strategies and approaches in sync and sometimes out-of-sync with my children.
I was terrified when I became the Project Director for dfusion’s SkillFlix for Parents Study. As a Phase II project, our team was tasked to evaluate the effectiveness of using a Microskills video training library to help parents of adolescents on the autism spectrum talk with their teens about relationships and sexual health topics. This is such a critically important and daunting task. With input from parents, professional advisors, and autistic young adults, we identified five categories and 31 separate topics to be covered in 207 essential videos.
The participatory process of turning 207 communication elements into meaningful and accessible video resources for parents is not a sprint…it is an ultramarathon! (And thanks to my son, I have had lots of experience supporting ultramarathons – so I was up for the task!). Not surprisingly, we broke this undertaking into a classic task analysis:
1. Organize behavior concepts
2. Identify the skills and steps of each Microskill
3. Succinctly define (in less than 75 characters!) each step
4. Create plot outlines for scenarios
5. Create robust and diverse family characters for each scenario
6. Write 207 realistic and engaging video scripts
7. Integrate autism-specific communication strategies into the scripts
8. Engage parents and professional advisors to review scripts
9. Hire 20 actors (neurotypical and neurodivergent)
10. Coordinate logistics for a 3-week video shoot with the production team
11. Edit and finalize videos
12. Add videos to the SkillFlix online library platform
13. Recruit 110 parents and their teen on the autism spectrum to take part in the evaluation study to test the effectiveness of the videos to support and build parent communication skills
Phew – and that’s just the high level task analysis! As with every ultramarathon, you go through every possible emotion during the race. Our team ran into quite a few obstacles, but we kept coming up with new and better ways to resolve problems and avert disaster (such as scriptwriters with family emergencies, an unwieldy spreadsheet with hundreds of variables, a power outage in the middle of filming, internet trolls and scammers). And through it all, the voices of parents give us the energy to keep going and cross the finish line. We are excited to start the evaluation phase of this project to test and share resources with parents of teens on the autism spectrum.
The communication, support, kindness, and community I've experienced as an actor on this SkillFlix for Parents project has been second to none. I truly enjoyed the experience and am hopeful that our work serves as a valuable and helpful resource for parents like me, navigating their way through raising a neuro-divergent teenager.
I really enjoyed playing the part of Logan in this video production. As someone on the autism spectrum, I feel these parent/child conversations are extremely helpful and necessary. My parents and I have had great communication through my teen and young adult years, but through this experience, we all realized there were some necessary and tough topics we never covered and should have. We all agreed these videos are very helpful communication tools for autism families. I am so proud to have been a part of it.
