Identifying Empirically Supported Treatments for Phobic Avoidance in Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities
Section snippets
Article selection
Articles were initially located by reviewing published studies listed in the PsycINFO and PubMed databases between 1970 and February 2007. Two search terms, one from each category, were always combined and each term was combined with every other term in the other category. The terms were as follows: (a) mental retardation, intellectual disability, developmental disability, developmental disorder, autism, or autistic disorder; and (b) avoidant behavior, avoidance, anxiety, anxiety disorder,
Single-case experiments
Each study was coded for experimental control as well as whether the participants attained the treatment goal (based on the criteria described above). Twelve of 13 studies using single-case designs demonstrated treatment efficacy through the use of good experimental design (see Table 1). It should be noted that, although all of the studies compared the treatment to a baseline condition, one study (Conyers et al., 2004) also compared two treatments (for 2 of 6 participants) after the first
Discussion
Although there is an extensive body of research on the treatment of anxiety in typically developing individuals, a relatively small number of studies have been published describing the treatment of phobic avoidance in individuals with intellectual disabilities. Based on our adaptation of criteria described by Divisions 12 and 16 for determining whether an intervention can be characterized as an empirically supported treatment, we concluded that there is sufficient empirical support to
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