Why We Did This Study
The number of intervention studies for young autistic children has been rapidly increasing over the last several decades. However, there are many different types of intervention approaches designed for autistic children, and researchers are not yet in agreement on the ‘best’ strategies for supporting developmentally important outcomes for this group of children. One way to sort through the existing research is to conduct a ‘meta-analysis’, which is a method of statistically combining results across studies.
What we Did
In a collaboration led by Dr. Micheal Sandbank (UT-Austin) and her Brain and Language Lab, with Tiffany Woynaroski (Vanderbilt University) and her BAND lab, we conducted a meta-analysis to combine the results of 150 reports on early intervention autism research.
What We Found
We found that several intervention types, including behavioral, developmental, and naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBI), showed positive outcomes for autistic children. However, when we excluded studies that didn’t follow two important quality indicators, we only found positive results for developmental and NDBI approaches. However, even the studies of these two approaches didn’t follow all quality guidelines that are considered important.
What This Means
Developmental and NDBI interventions appear to have the highest quality evidence supporting their effectiveness for young autistic children. Overall however, we need better research to really know which types of interventions work, and in what ways they are able to support autistic children.
You can read more about this study in this article from Spectrum News.
Additional AIM Studies Led by the ACER Lab
We also conducted two follow-up studies to better understand the kinds of things autism early intervention researchers are doing that may influence research quality, or our ability to interpret the conclusions of early intervention studies. Those studies are linked below.