Improving Access to Community Occupations via Rideshare: A Pilot Study With Autistic Adults.
Stacey Reynolds, Karla Estrada, Hannah Feder and 6 others
Thirteen autistic adults who had never used rideshare independently learned to do so through online modules and supervised ride-alongs.
Independence and safety scores rose significantly, and eight of eleven who reported follow-up data took rides in the two months after.
Key findings
1Independence scores improved significantly across the sessions; the predicted score for a new participant peaked at 26.08 (95% PI 23.66–28.75) at Week 6 and was 25.26 (95% PI 23.24–27.25) at Session 8.
2Safety scores also improved significantly; the predicted safety score peaked at 9.02 (95% PI 8.44–9.32) at Session 7.
3Eight of eleven participants who reported follow-up data took a total of 40 independent rides in the 8 weeks after training; the median number of rides increased from 0 before to 3.5 after (p = .011).
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What it does not show
Pilot study with 13 participants and no control group; any improvement could reflect practice, motivation, or the novelty of being in a study rather than the specific training content. The primary outcome measure (the 30-item Rideshare Independence Checklist) was developed by the research team and has not been tested for reliability or validity. 92% of participants lived in suburban areas; the authors note that urban and rural rideshare use may present different challenges not captured here. All rides during the intervention were paid for by the study; during the two-month follow-up, participants paid out of pocket, which may have suppressed reported use. One participant withdrew after four modules and five ride-alongs; the reason shifted from 'illness' to 'inconvenient for the family.' The fidelity checklist was also investigator-developed and unvalidated, and fidelity was only assessed during the virtual component, not the ride-along sessions.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the significant independence and safety gains as proof the program works in the way a controlled trial would show. This is a one-group pilot with no comparison condition, an unvalidated primary measure, and only 13 participants. The follow-up ride data also come from self-report via text messages, and during training all rides were free (study-funded) while follow-up rides were paid by the participant, so the drop from 40 rides in 8 weeks to a median of 3.5 may reflect cost rather than loss of skill.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →