Author(s): National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Connie Wong
- Samuel L. Odom
- Kara Hume
- Ann W. Cox
- Angel Fettig
- Suzanne Kucharczyk
- Matthew E. Brock
- Joshua B. Plavnick
- Veronica P. Fleury
- Tia R. Schultz
Published: January 2014
Report Intro/Brief:
“Since the discovery of autism as a human condition by Kanner (1943) and Asperger (1944) in the 1940s, individuals responsible for education and care of children and youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have striven to provide effective practices and programs. Such efforts continue today. The increased prevalence of ASD has intensified the demand for effective educational and therapeutic services, and intervention science is now providing evidence about which practices are effective. The purpose of this report is to describe a process for the identification of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and also to delineate practices that have sufficient empirical support to be termed “evidence-based.” In this introduction, we will briefly review the current conceptualization of ASD, explain the difference between focused intervention practices and comprehensive treatment models, provide a rationale for narrowing our review to the former, describe other reports that have identified evidence-based practices, briefly describe our first review of the literature (Odom, Collet-Klingenberg, Rogers, & Hatton, 2010), and lastly provide the rationale for conducting an updated review of the literature and revision of the former set of practices identified.
In Chapter 2, we describe in detail the methodology followed in searching the literature, evaluating research studies, and identifying practices. In Chapter 3, the practices are described along with the type of outcomes individual practices generate and the age of children for whom the outcomes were found. In Chapter 4, we summarize the findings, discuss their relationship to other reviews, compare the current review process to the previous process, identify limitations of this review, and propose implications of study results for practice and future research. In the Appendix, each practice is described and specific studies that provide empirical support for the practice are listed.”
-from the report introduction
