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

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, supported by Salesforce, set out to tackle late autism diagnosis—typically occurring around ages four to five—by improving early detection when intervention is most effective. OTARC had trained over 200 nurses to observe infants using paper forms and, from those observations, developed an algorithm that identifies early signs of autism, but needed a scalable way to reach more families and streamline follow-up.

Using Heroku and the Salesforce Platform, OTARC built ASDetect—a mobile app with guided questions, illustrative videos, and automated data capture that links directly to their assessment algorithm and CRM workflows. The solution enabled parental self-assessment, automated nurturing and referral emails, and centralized case management; their surveillance work has reached over 30,000 infants, achieved an 81% detection accuracy, identified hundreds of high-likelihood cases, and created a scalable architecture for future research and support.

Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC)

Cheryl Dissanayake

Director