An increasing number of interventions have some empirical support ; others are emerging as potentially efficacious .
This evidence base up date examines the level of empirical support for interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) younger than 5 years old .
Home-Based Behavioral Treatment of Young Children with Autism
This study evaluated the impact of intensive behavioral treatment on the development of  young autistic children .  The treatment reported in this study was home based and was implemented by parents of autistic children with the assistance of community-based clinicians . Although treatment was unable to be observed directly , parents reported that therapy was based on methods developed by Lovaas et al. ( 1981 ) . Treatment differed from that described in previous reports of intensive behavior therapy for this population in that it was implemented outside an academic setting and for a shorter period . In addition , children received fewer hours per week of therapy than in previous reports . Children in the experimental treatment group were pairwise matched to children in a control group ( who received conventional school-based and brief one-on-one interventions ) on the basis of pretreatment chronological and mental age , diagnosis ( autism vs. PDD ) , and length of treatment . The groups did not differ on pretreatment IQ . Children receiving the experimental treatment had significantly higher posttreatment IQ scores . Smaller , but still statistically significant effects on symptom severity were also found , though experimental subjects still met diagnostic criteria for autism or PDD
An increasing number of interventions have some empirical support ; others are emerging as potentially efficacious .
This evidence base up date examines the level of empirical support for interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) younger than 5 years old .