Culturally adapting a parent psychoeducational intervention for Chinese immigrant families of young children with autism spectrum disorder

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Often times when we adapt an intervention, it is overwhelming to navigate the complexities of adaptation tasks. Where do we start, how to organize the numerous steps we need to take after community members provide feedback and insights on what needs to be changed. I was in the same place when I adapted this intervention. So I developed a process to approach cultural adaptation with a few tangible steps as shown in figure 1. These steps start with a structured coding system combining three well-established adaptation frameworks and coding systems. Then, conduct focus groups with community members to obtain insights and feedback for modifications. The predeveloped codebook is used for analyzing and structuring the steps we need to take. Start with the contextual elements, such as how we deliver the intervention, by who, and key cultural factors that need to be incorporated. Then move on to content adaptation. For content adaptation, focus on the deep structural changes, and then finalize with the surface structure changes (e. g. pictures, sayings). This way, the adaptations are broken down into three different stages instead of an overwhelming lot without a structure to follow. I hope this approach can help those who are interested in delivering or adapting culturally appropriate parent interventions, particularly for children with autism and developmental disabilities.

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