Case Study: Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC) achieves earlier, more accurate autism detection with Salesforce for Nonprofits

Salesforce changes the outlook for parents regarding the early detection of Autism in their children

The Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC) at La Trobe University works to improve early detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a condition now affecting about 1 in 68 people where average diagnosis still occurs around age four to five. OTARC had trained more than 200 nurses and observed over 30,000 babies to identify early signs, but relied on paper-based screenings and needed a scalable, parent-accessible way to catch signs sooner so children could receive early intervention.

With donated time and resources from Salesforce, OTARC built ASDetect on Heroku and the Salesforce platform (using Nonprofit Success Pack, Sales and Marketing Cloud) — a mobile and web app that guides parents through video-supported questions linked to OTARC’s algorithm (81% accuracy) and sends results to the centre. The system automates follow-up emails, connects at-risk families with support, has identified hundreds of high-likelihood cases, and provides a scalable architecture for expanding research and services.

Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC)

Cheryl Dissanayake

Director