Behavior intervention for young children with intellectual disability
Early an intensive behavior intervention (EIBI) is established as an effective treatment and educational option for young children with autism. As the intervention is based on analysis of behavior and environment it should also be effective for other children with or without disabilities. But there has been fewer research studies on this application of behavior interventions. But gladly, now Eldevik, Eikeseth, Hastings and Hughes has published a study on the outcome of behavior intervention for young children with intellectual disabilities.
This study compares behavior intervention to an eclectic educational option showing results in favor of behavior intervention. 64 % of the children in the behavioral group showed objective reliable change in IQ as 14 % in the eclectic group. And the behavior group also showed favourable outcome in adaptive behavior. The behavior group only received about 10 hours a week of behavior intervention!
Link to the abstract. Cognitive and Adaptive Behavior Outcomes of Behavioral Intervention for Young Children With Intellectual Disability
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Thank you for highlighting this work. I have not read the full text yet but am interested in the methods and measures used because of some perception of the immutability of IQ.
Have you read the full article? If so, do you have any comment on what you found most interesting?
I have read the article and one of the the things I found most interesting was the effect of relatively few hours of intervention. The behavior intervention group received about 10 hours of intervention pr week, range from 8 to 15 hours. Whereas earlier studies have shown little effect of this amount of hours for children with autism, using ABA intervention based om Lovaas studies.
The measures are collected using standarized test for IQ (Baylay and Stanford-Binet) and Adaptive Behavior (Vineland).