Nesrhtens…..

ScienceDaily (2009-03-31) — Two-year-olds with autism lack an important building block of social interaction that prompts newborn babies to pay attention to other people. Instead, these children pay attention to physical relationships between movement and sound and miss critical social information.

Exciting new research important both for early identification and early intervention. Looking forward to read the scientific paper..

Thomson and colleagues from University of Manitoba, has an excellent article in press in the journal Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders. It´s a review of research done on teaching individuals to deliver Discrete Trail Teaching (DTT).

The article review the components of instructing parents, para-professionals, and other professionals and bring some interesting results, but not surprisingly concluding with the need of more research.

And one of the elements this article highlight is the use of standardized measurement of the delivering of DTT. The authors presents the Discrete-Trials Teaching Evaluation Form (DTTEF) submitted for publication by Fazzio, Arnal, & Martin. The DTTEF 21 items that are field-tested to measure the application of DTT. This looks like an interesting and useful tool for supervisors and program managers to secure quality in an EIBI – program. And it´s a welcomed addition to earlier published tools for evaluating DTT.

So let´s hope more researchers use the same measurements in evaluating teaching and instruction for DTT delivering, as the field of EIBI needs efficient methods to widespread these skills.

As not all children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) reach the same outcome of behavioral treatment, there has been a lot of work done to identify predictors both for which children will benefit the most from behavioral treatment.

This research has historically investigated both skills or deficits the children possesses before treatment starts, and some elements of the early learning style. There is done quite a lot of work on Early Learning Measures (ELM). None of this research has come up with concluding results, so it´s important to get more research done in this area.

Schreibman and colleagues has done some research in this area in the recent years, specially within the framework of Pivotal Response Training, and has now published a study in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

This is an important area of research that need more attention. More knowledge in this area will make pratcioners able to offer and design better programs based on each individuals unique characteristics, and probably contribute to the understanding of how the different components of behavioral programs contribute to great results.

Eric Fombonne is publishing a new article on Epidemiology of pervasive developmental disorder in Pediatric Research, reviewing 43 published articles that estimates the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) or pervasive developmental disorders, including the most common diagnosis in the spectrum.

The study finds the increase in prevalence and states: “There is evidence that the broadening of the concept, the expansion of diagnostic criteria, the development of services, and improved awareness of the condition have played a major role in explaining this increase, although it cannot be ruled out that other factors might have also contributed to that trend.”

Fombonne has provided the field of autism with much knowledge on prevalence, and it´s good to see the great work being continued!

Wood and colleagues from University of California, Los Angeles has published a study on Cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorders. The study is a randomized, controlled trial and shows promising results.

This study has adopted an evidence-based treatment manual to use with children with autism spectrum disorders, and the treatment;

“In intent-to-treat analyses, 78.5% of the CBT group met Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement scale criteria for positive treatment response at posttreatment, as compared to only 8.7% of the waitlist group. CBT also outperformed the waitlist on diagnostic outcomes and parent reports of child anxiety, but not children’s self-reports. Treatment gains were maintained at 3-month follow-up.” (from abstract)

Many has provided cognitive behavioral therapy for children with autism, both anxiety and OCD, so it´s a pleasure to see a randomized clinical trail with an good number of participants. This article is also mentioned in this very good blog.