Applying an F-words lens to planning intervention for a child with autism: a retrospective case report with prospective follow-up

Vollständiger Abstract

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Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) present with complex, multi-domain functional challenges that single-domain intervention approaches fail to address adequately. This retrospective case report, with prospective follow-up from age 7 years, applies CanChild’s F-words and the F-words Lens Tool to examine intervention planning and developmental outcomes across a five-year trajectory for an eight-year-old autistic girl with co-occurring hypotonia and joint hypermobility. For each developmental period, from 24 months to eight years, we identify the functional challenge encountered, drawing on standardized assessment data (CELF Preschool, Renfrew Action Picture Test, ADOS-2) alongside clinical and family report, and describe how F-words thinking informed clinical decision-making in real time; the F-words Lens Tool, developed subsequently, is applied here, retrospectively for earlier periods and prospectively from age 7, to structure this reasoning transparently, specify the interventions selected and their cross-domain rationale, and report outcomes. The case traces the child’s trajectory through the early developmental period, and following transition to mainstream schooling with presenting strengths and challenges. Caregiver accounts (father, grandmother) and the child’s own first-person perspective provide the lived experience outcomes across F-words domains. Together, this triangulated account demonstrates how the F-words and F-words Lens Tool can enhance clinical decision-making and family collaboration while preserving child agency, contributing an example to the global discourse on evidence-based, family-centred practice in complex neurodevelopmental presentations.