MEYA Coping Plan and Exposure Therapy for Child Anxiety

This is the MEYA (Modular Evidence Based Practices for Youth with Autism) Intervention Program training vignette for addressing clinical anxiety. This video depicts the development of a coping plan in which the child expresses his irrational beliefs about being left in a room by himself as well as logical thoughts about why he actually is safe in the room, even in the dark. A preferred character, Harry Potter, is used briefly to increase engagement in the discussion. The session also depicts in vivo exposure in which the child tries out a “challenge” task of being in the therapy room with the lights off by himself. Typically this practice is supplemented by similar activities at home in which the child practices faces these kinds of fears, using home-based incentives to increase motivation. MEYA is a web-based training and clinical decision-making application for working with youth with autism that is currently undergoing preliminary clinical trials testing. This program is based on the most strongly supported cognitive and positive-behavioral therapeutic interventions for youth aged 6-17 years on the spectrum. It is particularly well suited to outpatient, community clinic, and school-based therapy or counseling settings. MEYA, when evaluated and refined, will be free to practitioners worldwide. The MEYA intervention and the scripts for the MEYA videos were developed at UCLA by Prof. Jeffrey J. Wood and Dr. Karen S. Wood. Video vignettes were professionally produced and directed by Patrick Ortman, Inc.