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 .
A Randomized Trial Comparison of the Effects of Verbal and Pictorial Naturalistic Communication Strategies on Spoken Language for Young Children with Autism
Presently there is no consensus on the specific behavioral treatment of choice for targeting language in young nonverbal children with autism . This r and omized clinical trial compared the effectiveness of a verbally-based intervention , Pivotal Response Training ( PRT ) to a pictorially-based behavioral intervention , the Picture Exchange Communication System ( PECS ) on the acquisition of spoken language by young ( 2–4 years ) , nonverbal or minimally verbal ( ≤9 words ) children with autism . Thirty-nine children were r and omly assigned to either the PRT or PECS condition . Participants received on average 247 h of intervention across 23 weeks . Dependent measures included overall communication , expressive vocabulary , pictorial communication and parent satisfaction . Children in both intervention groups demonstrated increases in spoken language skills , with no significant difference between the two conditions . Seventy-eight percent of all children exited the program with more than 10 functional words . Parents were very satisfied with both programs but indicated PECS was more difficult to implement
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 .