Lasting Impressions | Fall 2014

NSU COLLEGE OF DENTAL MEDICINE © 21 By Michelle F. Solomon B ig ideas are coming from the small, one-room dental clinic inside NSU’s Mailman Segal Center for Human Development (MSC). This compact space could change the way dentists deliver services to children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Now entering its last year of a five-year, $2.5 million Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) federal grant, the clinic has provided hundreds of child- ren who have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with free dental services. But what dental residents say they’ve learned will make a difference in their professional careers and make a positive impact on their future patients. “As dentists, we don’t get enough training on relation- ships and behaviors. Being exposed to, and working with, the behavior analysts from the Mailman Segal Center made an impact on me as a professional and will be useful in my career,” said Don Do, D.D.S., a second-year resident in NSU’s College of Dental Medicine Pediatric Dentistry program. CDM dentists and behavior analysts from the MSC have collaborated to develop a treatment plan specific to children with autism by using the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In this instance, the objective of ABA is to modify behavior for treatment. “One of the main goals in the collaboration is not just to have the clinic at the Mailman Segal Center, but to bring different elements to the behavior management of children with ASD when it comes to their dental care … to not use typical behavior management or guidance protocol,” said Oscar Padilla, D.D.S., associate professor of clinical dentistry in the department of pediatric dentistry. Padilla, who heads up the pediatric clinic inside MSC, explains that the usual teaching technique for pediatric dentists, and the most popu- lar technique for managing ASD behavior in dentists’ offices, is being reevaluated using the interdisciplinary knowledge of the dentists, dental residents, and the behavior analysts. One of the most universal techniques, known as “tell- show-do,” involves verbal explanations of procedures in phrases appropriate to the developmental level of the patient (tell); demonstrations for the patient of the visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile aspects of the procedure in a carefully defined, nonthreatening setting (show); and then, without deviating from the explanation and demonstration, comple- tion of the procedure (do). The tell-show-do technique is used with communication skills (verbal and nonverbal) and positive reinforcement, according to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. Young patients at the dental clinic inside NSU’s Mailman Segal Center for Human Development are shown a task strip that illustrates what will happen during their treatments. continued on page 24