Autism Center Externship
Autism Center, Child Mind Institute
Externship
Description:
The Child Mind Institute offers psychology graduate students in doctoral programs a yearlong externship focused on the evaluation and treatment of children with autism, related neurodevelopmental disorders, and co-occurring conditions in the clinical-research program of the Autism Center. This externship program is primarily designed for advanced graduate students (3rd year and above) in clinical, school-clinical, and school psychology doctoral programs. Training will focus on developing expertise in conducting and interpreting diagnostic assessments, writing summary reports, formulating treatment recommendations, and providing a range of evidence based, skills-oriented treatment interventions to children and adolescents with social skills deficits. Treatment opportunities will include individual cognitive behavior therapy, behavioral interventions, and social skills training. Externs will be actively involved in group based social skills programming, including Children's Friendship Training (CFT) and the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS). Diagnostic assessments include the evaluation of cognitive, language, academic, and social-emotional functioning, and the use of gold standard autism diagnostic instruments, including the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale (ADOS-2), and Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R). Externs are actively involved in our interdisciplinary clinical-research team meetings. We have an active clinical practice that serves children through young adults with autism, as well as NIMH-funded research studies on autism in young children (ages 1-5), and pilot studies of group social skills intervention for school age children with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Our externship program seeks highly motivated individuals who demonstrate a particular interest in evaluation, assessment, and treatment of youth with autism. Our training model includes a range of within-center trainings, participation in case conferences, weekly supervision with a licensed clinical psychologist, and frequent opportunities to observe senior clinicians during evaluation and treatment sessions. The extern will work at the Child Mind Institute Manhattan office.
Child Mind Institute is committed to public health and to the safety and wellbeing of our leagues, visitors and volunteers. As such, we have adopted a policy requiring all paid or unpaid staff whose positions require them to be on site to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or to meet the legal guidelines for an exemption.
Center for Autism Faculty:
Directors- Adriana Di Martino, MD; Research Director for Autism Center
- Cynthia Martin, PsyD; Clinical Director for Autism Center
Faculty
- Margaret Dyson PhD; Clinical Psychologist, Training Coordinator
- Alana Telesford, PhD; Clinical Psychologist
General information about externship site:
Directors of the Program: Adriana Di Martino, MD; Cynthia Martin, PsyD.
Training Director: Kenneth Schuster, PsyD; Director of Clinical Training.
Website: https://childmind.org/center/autism-center/
Length of externship (in months): 12.
Start Date: July 1, 2024 [Mandatory orientation July1, 2, & 3, 2024].
End Date: June 30, 2025.
How many hours a week are expected of extern?: Half-time (16-20 hours per week), spread in 2-3 days, with a preference for Mondays or Thursdays, Tuesdays along with Fridays. Fridays are required to participate in clinical training activities.
Specialty tracks: Psychological assessment, research, and neuropsychology.
# of externs to be accepted for 2024-25: up to 3.
Minimum level of readiness (any prior experiences or level of training required for applicants): Advanced graduate students (3rd year and above) in clinical, school-clinical, and school psychology doctoral programs. Prior experience with children preferred but not required.
Preferences: None.
Do you provide a stipend? If so how much?: No.
Interviews:
When do you expect to begin interviews? Interviewees will be contacted beginning [to be decided by NYNJADOT-PSYDNYS]. Interviews will occur between [to be decided by NYNJADOT-PSYDNYS].
Interview process (provide information about interview process- time frame, how decisions are made) Also, do you conduct individual and/or group interviews; case presentation, other information?: Individual interviews only; interviewees should expect to spend about 30 minutes in an interview. During the interview, the applicant should be able to speak about their child assessment and treatment experiences, discuss previous cases, and demonstrate why they feel they are a good fit.
What application materials are required (i.e., CV, transcript, how many reference letters, case summary, test report, other)?: To apply to the Autism Clinical Research Externship, please submit a cover letter, current CV, letter of eligibility, two letters of recommendation, and a de-identified testing report. Please address the cover letter to: Cynthia Martin, PsyD; Adriana Di Martino, MD; and Margaret Dyson, PhD.
If you have any questions regarding specific information about the Autism Center Externship, please contact Margaret Dyson, PhD (Margaret.Dyson@childmind.org).
For general Child Mind Institute psychology externship questions, please contact Kenneth Schuster, PsyD (Kenneth.Schuster@childmind.org).
Intervention training experiences offered: Estimate average number of individual patients that students will carry; estimate number of groups and other types of interventions. Offer description: 1-3 treatment cases over the course of the externship, which will including a combination of individual and group treatment. Individual cases will include training and supervision in CBT, behavioral interventions, and social skills training. Involvement in social skills groups, includes The Program for Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) and Children's Friendship Training (CFT).
Assessment training experiences commonly offered. Describe: Externs will participate in different aspects of the autism and comorbid psychopathology assessments, in both the clinical practice and on research studies. This will include training and experience on standardized measures of development, cognitive, language, psychoeducational, and adaptive functioning, as well as parent interviews and autism testing. There will be opportunities to train in the administration and scoring of at least one of the two gold-standard autism diagnostic instruments (i.e., ADOS-2 and ADI-R) by observing, conducting and scoring their administration with reliable evaluators. The candidate will also gain experience writing evaluation reports.
Expected number of full assessment batteries completed during externship (defined as administration of a battery of standardized tests): Multiple, both individually under supervision, as well as part of observation.
Estimate # of integrated assessment reports per year: 21.
If offering Rorschach, which scoring systems used: Rorschach training is not offered.
Supervision:
Estimate hours/week of individual supervision: 1 hour per week. Extern supervision is 1:1. Additional supervision will occur in the context of case conference, in-vivo while participating in evaluations, and within the context of report writing.
Estimated hours/week of group supervision: 1 hour.
Estimated hour/week of didactics: 1-2 hours.
Estimated co-therapy hours with supervisors: Not applicable.
Context of didactics (seminars, Grand Rounds): Case conferences take place weekly. An Institute-wide didactic series is offered year-round. Additionally, externs attend lectures through our Visiting Professor Series, which are instructed by renowned experts in mental health, and externs have the opportunity to meet as a group with each visiting professor. Externs can also participate in bi-weekly research-focused didactics led by Dr. Di Martino and present at the Autism Center journal club.
Estimated informal open door "curbside" supervision: Supervision will also happen in-vivo in the context of observing evaluations.
Describe Direct supervision: Supervision is initially directive and collaborative with an emphasis on increasing the trainee's ability to function more independently within our setting across time.
Specify if observation occurs during intervention, assessment, consultation (e.g., audio, video, live in person [in treatment room, one-way mirror, live video stream]): Live in-person observations occur during assessments.
Support:
If you have only one extern, would you be to have the extern participate in a peer support consortium with other sites- live or "SKYPE"?: No.
Is the agency readily accessible through public transportation?: Yes.
Wheelchair accessible: Yes.
Are home visits required as part of the trainee's duties?: No.
Is a transportation stipend provided?: No.