It is also known, however, that treatment response is not uniform within the population. Treatment research has demonstrated the feasibility of fostering significant gains in language, social adjustment, preacademic and academic achievement, and other desirable outcomes. The focus of many studies has been on compliance and on specific academic or preacademic achievements. Assignment to regular classes as the criterion for successful outcome is often meaningless because it reflects local political and legal mandates more than individual child need or status. Research thus far has demonstrated that intervention, and particularly early intervention, offers significant hope for lessening the effects of autism.
Many questions remain unanswered, however.
Research is needed that uses robust experimental designs to evaluate and compare various approaches to treatment. In particular, the working group felt that it was essential to distill a set of outcome measures that would have broad appeal for evaluating treatment approaches. While there was recognition of the significant potential for controversy in this area, it was felt that the problem could be managed and a reasonable set of measures might emerge if a broad constituency was involved in the development effort. Some concern was also expressed that social policy advancement was needed to streamline the process of obtaining human studies approval for intervention studies. Although the committee was clearly aware of and duly concerned about the need to protect individuals with autism and their families in accomplishing research studies, the growing requirements for sometimes numerous, largely redundant reviews by multiple human subject review boards were seen as a possible obstacle in accomplishing certain types of intervention studies.