H - 16 Providing Care to Spanish-Speaking Families in an Autism Clinic: Insights from Bilingual Spanish-English Speaking Trainees

Bilingual trainees at the Center for Autism Care (CAC) present insights from working with Spanish-speaking families with the integration of an interpreter during an autism evaluation.Two Spanish-English speaking clinical psychology trainees observed evaluations conducted by the supervising psychologist via Spanish-English interpreters. Trainees gathered observational data through a frequency count of interpretation difficulties within the course of six evaluations for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) thus far. The observations included an interpreter who frequently works at CAC and other professional interpreters who serve Children's Health clinics. A frequency count for type of error and content of error was collected within evaluations supported by various interpreters.A total of 41 errors in interpretation were observed across six autism evaluations during consent, interview, and feedback. Errors were categorized into types of errors (e.g., truncated message, incorrect interpretation, direct question from family, and direct clarification from interpreter) and content of errors (e.g., routines, restricted and repetitive behaviors, social communication, and comorbid diagnoses). 68.3% of interpretation errors included semantic content specific to ASD or discussion of comorbid diagnoses. 44% of interpretation errors consisted of a message being truncated.Findings indicate that the bulk of interpretation errors occurred when interpreting autism-specific terms. Despite limited encounters, our observations indicate that interpretation of patient-specific information, including specialized diagnostic details of ASD, is most susceptible to misinterpretation. Future directions may include exploring the utility of a handout to support interpreter knowledge of specialized terms to ensure Spanish-speaking families receive optimal care.