The Cultural Adaptation Checklist (CAC): quality indicators for cultural adaptation of intervention and practice

Cultural adaptation of evidence-based interventions for children with developmental disabilities, including autism, is an effective way to increase the effectiveness and sustainment of intervention effects. Such uptake of interventions is especially needed for communities of marginalized and minoritized populations. However, there have been very limited guidelines on how to ensure quality for cultural adaptation in autism research. With this gap in mind, we present the Cultural Adaptation Checklist, which was developed in an iterative process based on the principles of implementation science with the purposes to (a) guide research on the cultural adaptation of evidence-based intervention with diverse populations, and (b) systematically appraise the quality of cultural adaptation reported in intervention literature. In this article, we describe the Checklist, the development process, and how it may guide cultural adaptation in autism research.