Early and intensive behavioral intervention for autism: A survey of clinical practices

doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2008.08.008

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Volume 3, Issue 2, April–June 2009, Pages 421-428

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2008.08.008 Get rights and content

Abstract

Early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) has been demonstrated to be a highly effective treatment for early childhood autism. As EIBI programs have proliferated, they have also begun to mutate and evolve such that between-program differences in specific practices are quite common. Unfortunately, the extent of this procedural variability is unknown. The purpose of the present investigation was to begin documenting the specific practices of EIBI programs. A 43-question Internet survey was distributed to professional supervisors of EIBI programs who provided information regarding their program’s characteristics and practices. A total of 211 program supervisors provided information on a number of practices, including curriculum, program size, therapist expertise and training, supervision, data collection, trial interspersal, consequence delivery, prompt fading, skill maintenance, and problem behavior assessment and treatment. The results indicate considerable variation in a number of EIBI practices. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were recruited by e-mailing invitations to participate to approximately 450 administrative and clinical contacts at programs that serve children with autism, and approximately 120 listservs (e.g., verbal behavior [VB], behavior analysis [BEHAV-AN]), and Yahoo groups (e.g., DTT-NET, VB, ABA job connections, ABA parents) devoted to the topics of autism or applied behavior analysis. Two hundred and eleven responses were received to an online survey supported by Hosted Survey (//www.hostedsurvey.com/

Results

The results for each of the areas addressed by the survey are presented below. Note that percentages are based on the number of respondents for a specific question, which did not always equal the total number (211) of survey respondents.

Discussion

Several findings from our survey of programs that provide EIBI services to children with autism warrant further discussion. Within the area of program characteristics, for example, it is interesting that many programs use relatively broad terms to describe themselves (e.g., EIBI, ABA) instead of their brand of treatment (e.g., Lovaas method, verbal behavior) or treatment modality (e.g., discrete trial instruction). The finding that a large proportion (48%) of program supervisors report using

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However, concerns persist regarding the establishment of EIBI within large-scale community-based services, notably regarding implementation fidelity. Furthermore, some authors have documented variability in the quality of EIBI implementation (Dionne, Joly, Paquet, Rousseau, & Rivard, 2016a; Gamache, Joly, & Dionne, 2011; Love, Carr, Almason, & Petursdottir, 2009); others have highlighted challenges related to implementation, mentioning limited resources in particular (Blocher-Rubin & Krabill, 2017). In Canada, provinces are responsible for providing health and social services, including support for developmental difficulties such as ASD.
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Early and intensive behavioral intervention for autism: A survey of clinical practices

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Results

Discussion

Research in Developmental Disabilities

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Research in Developmental Disabilities

Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Evaluation of a brief multiple-stimulus preference assessment in a naturalistic context

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Teacher report and direct assessment of preference for identifying reinforcers for young children

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Comparisons of discrete-trial and normalized behavioral intervention for young children with autism

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Survey of functional assessment procedures used with individuals who display mental retardation and severe problem behaviors

American Journal on Mental Retardation