Oak Hill School has partnered with UCSF researchers to investigate just how successful coordinated care can be for improving outcomes for young people with autism.

The power of coordination in treatment outcomes.

In UCSF psychiatrist Dr. Hendren's recent lecture on Autism, he presents a comprehensive overview of the various types of traditional and integrative medical treatments and other interventions being used by professionals to help our ASD population to feel healthier, be more successful and better regulated. He sums up by saying “underneath the vail of Autism is a person/kid. The interventions reviewed can help lift the vail by making the body healthier and bringing the child out. Our work is at all levels medical, ancillary, behavioral, pharmacological and biomedical.”

In UCSF psychiatrist Dr. Hendren's recent lecture on Autism, he presents a comprehensive overview of the various types of traditional and integrative medical treatments and other interventions being used by professionals to help our ASD population to feel healthier, be more successful and better regulated. He sums up by saying “underneath the vail of Autism is a person/kid. The interventions reviewed can help lift the vail by making the body healthier and bringing the child out. Our work is at all levels medical, ancillary, behavioral, pharmacological and biomedical.”

What distinguishes Oak Hill is how our students are actively engaged (and directly benefit from) the newest and most promising developments in autism research.

We are studying and tracking synchronized and highly personalized communication between parents and our educational, medical, and psychosocial teams. Data is constantly collected via online surveys, and then outcome data is tracked and monitored.

This is a crucial step in developing evidence-based targeted treatments in a school setting.

This work is led by Dr. Robert Hendren, Chairman of the Board of Oak Hill School and a UCSF Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Emeritus in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 

The ON-GOING study allows Oak Hill School to: 

• Create and effectively use an online data capture system to track and monitor outcome data gathered from students, a crucial step in developing evidence-based targeted treatments in a school setting.

  • Develop an integrated, comprehensive, and collaborative approach to providing care to young people with autism.

To date, the Oak Hill School - UCSF research partnership has yielded eight articles published in peer-reviewed journals.

Its first book, The Oak Hill Method: Connecting to Students with Autism. The findings have also been presented at several international and national conferences for autism research over the years.