Response from Authors to Comments on “An Intervention for Sensory Difficulties in Children with Autism: A Randomized Trial”

Excerpt

Thank you for your excellent and positive review of our article “An Intervention for Sensory Difficulties in Children with Autism: A Randomized Trial” and for highlighting many of the strategies we used to assure a methodologically rigorous study. We appreciate your inclusion of areas for future research including comparative effectiveness trials and studies that examine the active ingredients and optimal dosage; these are areas that our program of research is actively pursuing. We have been careful to plan our program of research in a systematic way, following the recommended guidelines for implementation of a psychosocial intervention (Smith et al. 2007). We began with single-case methodology (Schaaf et al. 2012a, b) and then moved from a feasibility trial (Schaaf et al. 2012a, b) to the randomized controlled trial (RCT) (Schaaf et al. 2013a, b). We are planning studies that will compare the efficacy of this intervention to other interventions and examine the potential mechanisms or mediators of the intervention in the future. Thus, it is our intent that this program of research is systematic and builds on the evidence generated. We are hopeful that other researchers will replicate and expand on the methods used in our study to further inform this important area. …