Research Initiatives
Lab Director/PI: Maryellen Brunson McClain
Current Graduate 91心頭利嫋 Researchers: Rabbiya Shahid, Alexa Brownell, Gwendolyn Davis, Andrea Lopez, Devin Byers, Alexa Gonzalez Laca, and Rylie Steuer
Collaborators: We have lots of collaborators across various disciplines! We frequently work with other researchers in school and clinical psychology, speech-language pathology, developmental medicine, and quantitative and qualitative methodology.
Broad Research Focus: We conduct applied, interdisciplinary research aimed at improving outcomes for children and adolescents with autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families. Our projects broadly focus on measure development and validation, health disparities and culturally responsive practices, psychological and psychoeducational assessment, and interprofessional and interagency collaboration.
Internally Funded Project: Development of the School-Age Autism Screener (SAAS)
Many autistic children are not identified in early childhood, which can delay their access to appropriate services and support. Our team is developing the School-Age Autism Screener (SAAS), a universal screening tool designed to support more accurate and timely identification of autism among school-aged children. The screener could be used by schools to inform special education identification and by healthcare professionals as part of diagnostic evaluations. In an initial study (funded by an internal grant within the IUB SoE) involving over 700 caregivers of children with and without autism, the SAAS demonstrated strong preliminary measurement properties. It assesses three key areas: social communication and interaction, sensory-motor behaviors, and behavioral and social flexibility. Scores on the measure also helped predict whether a child had an autism diagnosis. Our next steps include refining the screener, further exploring how the measure functions within autistic populations, and examining how well it works across children from different sociocultural backgrounds. Once the measure is fully established, we plan to study how it can be effectively integrated into everyday practice in schools and healthcare settings. This project is being conducted in collaboration with Dubravka Svetina Valdivia at Indiana University, Jonathan Campbell at Marcus Autism Center, Megan Golson at Texas A&M University, and Bryn Harris at the University of Colorado Denver.
Recent and On-Going Projects: Cross-Cultural Understanding of Social Communication and Interaction
Social communication and interaction skills—which are core to conceptualizing and identifying autism—can be understood differently depending on a family’s cultural values, experiences, and expectations. To support more culturally responsive autism research and identification practices, our team developed the Social Communication and Interaction Perceptions Scale (SCIPS), a caregiver-report measure for children and adolescents ages 6–18 that assesses both how often social communication and interaction skills occur and how important caregivers consider them to be. Initial findings showed that the SCIPS is reliable and captures foundational and advanced aspects of these skills, while also revealing meaningful differences in caregiver perspectives across sociodemographic groups. We just finished analyzing new data to confirm the measure’s psychometric properties; findings continue to support that the SCIPS measures perceptions of both advanced and foundational aspects of social communication and interaction skills. An upcoming study will examine whether the SCIPS measures the same constructs and performs comparably across different sociocultural groups. In collaboration with former lab member Britany Beauchesne (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital), who graduated in 2025, we are developing an early childhood version of the SCIPS for caregivers of children ages 2–5. This work builds on Britany’s dissertation research, which laid the foundation for the new measure.
These projects are in collaboration with Sijia Huang at Indiana University Bloomington, Megan Golson at Texas A&M University, Bryn Harris at The University of Colorado Denver, and Sarah Schwartz and Camille Wynn at Utah State University.
Links to Publications: ,
Upcoming Project: Development and Evaluation of ECHO Autism School Evaluation
School psychologists play a central role in identifying autistic students and connecting them with individualized supports, yet many receive limited training in conducting evidence-informed autism evaluations. Our team is developing ECHO Autism School Evaluation, an accessible, virtual professional development program designed to help address this gap. Using the established , the program will bring school psychologists across the U.S. together with autism experts for brief instruction, collaborative case discussions, mentorship, and shared learning grounded in real-world practice. We will examine whether participation improves school psychologists’ knowledge, confidence, and use of evidence-informed evaluation practices, while also studying the program’s acceptability, feasibility, and opportunities for improvement. By strengthening the skills of practicing school psychologists, this project aims to promote more accurate, timely, and culturally responsive identification of autistic students and improve access to appropriate services and supports.
This project is being conducted in collaboration with Micah Mazurek at the University of Virginia and Therisa Gabrielsen at Brigham Young University.
The (BCSSE) is a national survey project that measures entering first-year students’ high school academic and co-curricular experiences as well as their expectations for participating in educationally purposeful activities during the first college year. Typically administered during orientation, BCSSE is a companion project to the National Survey of 91心頭利嫋 Engagement (NSSE) and, thus, contributes to the broader discourse about student engagement and the quality of undergraduate education. BCSSE results, especially when examined alongside NSSE data collected the following spring, can inform initiatives to enhance the first-year experience with recognized effective educational practices. Participating institutions use BCSSE results in many ways such as academic advising, retention efforts, first-year program design and evaluation, accreditation self-studies, faculty and staff development, and recruitment. Since its inception in 2007, more than 800,000 new first-year students at 488 colleges and universities have completed BCSSE. The BCSSE website provides resources and tools used by institutional researchers, faculty, and others involved in assessing and promoting student engagement in higher education. BCSSE findings have been presented at many national and international conferences as well as in scholarly journals, book chapters, and other outlets. BCSSE is housed in the Center for Postsecondary Research. For additional information, please contact Dr. James S. Cole, BCSSE project manager.
The College Union Engagement Study, a partnership with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) (), is designed to examine the outcomes associated with student engagement in a college union facility and to develop a framework of how the college union broadly contributes to student learning and success within a complex higher education environment. Specifically focusing on ACUI’s The Role of the College Union statement to guide this study will provide a foundation for understanding how the college union contributes to student success and learning. Understanding how a higher education institution’s mission aligns with The Role of the College Union will provide professionals with the evidence they need to enhance programs and services on college campuses and to think intentionally about building renovations. For additional information, please contact Dr. Danielle DeSawal.
Action for Access is dedicated to advancing inclusive education in schools and communities worldwide. We believe that every student, regardless of ability or circumstances, deserves the opportunity to thrive academically and socially. Through research, advocacy, and professional development initiatives, we work to support educational access for students with disabilities around the world.
The (FSSE) is a web-based survey administered nationally to faculty and instructors at baccalaureate degree-granting colleges and universities. The survey complements the National Survey of 91心頭利嫋 Engagement (NSSE) and is designed to measure instructional staff expectations for student engagement in educational practices that are empirically linked with high levels of learning and development. Since 2003, more than 250,000 instructional staff from more than 800 institutions have participated in FSSE, which has provided data for critical discussions and research related to teaching, learning, and the quality of undergraduates’ educational experience. Institutions also use FSSE results for accreditation self-studies, assessment and improvement, curricular reform, professional development, institutional research, faculty and graduate student workshops and retreats, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. For additional information, please contact either Dr. Thomas Nelson Laird, PI or Allison BrckaLorenz, FSSE Project Manager (fsse@indiana.edu)
surveys law students about their activities, experiences, and satisfaction in law school, and uses the data generated from its survey to help improve legal education. Participating law schools receive anonymized data as well as analytical reports that provide context and comparison to groups of law schools as well as national averages. Through consulting services, LSSSE helps law schools maximize the usefulness of their survey data and assessment activities. Academics and higher education scholars also utilize LSSSE data in diverse research on legal education. With more than 330,000 responses by law students since its inception in 2004, LSSSE comprises perhaps the largest database on legal education. LSSSE is housed at the Center for Postsecondary Research. For additional information, please contact Meera Deo, Contributing Director or Chad Christensen, LSSSE project manager, at lssse@indiana.edu.
This project is for middle school science teachers who are interested in introducing medical research careers to their students for the 91心頭利嫋al Pathways to Cancer Research project.
Teachers will learn in-depth content and pedagogy pertaining to inquiry-based science focused on medical research with an emphasis on cancer research. The project will be led by Indiana University cancer researchers and faculty from the IU School of 91心頭利嫋 Bloomington. The workshops will utilize exemplar classroom-ready, hands-on lessons that teach science and engineering practices and align with Indiana state and Next Generation Science standards.
The overarching aim of this initiative is to create and utilize tools to assist postsecondary institutions in their efforts to examine, understand, and improve their campus environments and to maximize success among diverse student populations. Moving beyond typical climate assessments, which tend to focus on challenges in the environment, the focuses on the types of environments that engage and support college students from all backgrounds. For additional information, please contact Dr. Lucy LePeau, NITE Associate Director.
The (NSSE) is a combined research and service project that assesses the extent to which first-year and senior undergraduates are exposed to and participate in empirically supported effective educational practices. It is the largest survey on the quality of the undergraduate experience, with roughly 500–750 bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities participating and 1.5–2 million undergraduates invited to complete the online survey each year. Since its launch in 2000, more than 1,600 institutions in the US and Canada have participated, most of them on a periodic basis.
NSSE aims to shift the national discourse about quality in undergraduate education to focus on what matters to student learning, while providing participating colleges and universities with valid, reliable, diagnostic, and actionable evidence about the undergraduate experience. NSSE findings have been reported in dozens of scholarly articles as well as in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, The Chronicle of Higher 91心頭利嫋, Inside Higher Ed, and other media outlets. NSSE has also been adapted for use in several other countries. Initially funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, NSSE is now fully self-supported by institution participation fees.
NSSE is housed in the. For additional information, please contact Dr. Alexander C. McCormick, NSSE Director.
Primary Investigator: Dr. Joel Wong
This project is part of a broader multisite project funded by the Templeton Foundation to study the role of virtues in psychotherapy. The site project, led by Joel Wong in collaboration with Jeremy Coleman (the University of Utah), addresses a critical gap in psychotherapy training and research by developing, evaluating, and disseminating gratitude-based micro-interventions for individual and group psychotherapy. Although extensive research links gratitude to positive individual and relational outcomes, few resources exist to train therapists in integrating gratitude interventions into routine clinical practice, and little empirical work has examined their use within psychotherapy itself.
The project aims to create practical gratitude micro-interventions that can be seamlessly incorporated into therapists’ existing treatment approaches. Two sets of training materials will be developed: one for a brief gratitude induction activity in individual therapy and another for facilitating gratitude social processes in group therapy. These materials will include training manuals and video vignettes demonstrating core microskills such as psychoeducation, scaffolding, deepening, affirmative responding, gratitude expression, and, in group contexts, linking group members’ experiences. All materials will be made freely available to the field.
Across four studies, the project will rigorously evaluate both clinical and training outcomes. Studies 1 and 2 will test the efficacy of gratitude micro-interventions in individual psychotherapy and cognitive-behavioral group therapy, respectively. These randomized controlled trials will be conducted at two training clinics: the Counseling and Wellness Center at Indiana University Bloomington and the Utah Community Mental Health Clinic at the University of Utah. Outcomes include therapeutic and group alliance, gratitude, forgiveness, humility, flourishing, and depression. Studies 3 and 4 will evaluate the effectiveness of online training programs for practicing therapists nationwide, examining skill acquisition and real-world uptake of gratitude micro-interventions. Together, this project will yield scalable training resource and empirical evidence for gratitude-based interventions in psychotherapy, advancing both clinical training and the science of virtue-based psychotherapy.