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
Today Pediatrics published a special consensus report on the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The consensus panel consists of 27 professionals with experience ASD, different backgrounds and with different affiliations.
The consensus panels seems to have done a thorough search and summarizes their findings in 23 statements giving recommendations on gastrointestinal disorders and autism spectrum disorders, and calling for more research.
This report is an important contribution to the knowledge on ASD and diets and medical complications, all involved in autism should know this report in order to make more informed recommendations and choices on treatment.
Continuous data collection is a key feature of Early and Intensive Behavior Interventions for preschool children with autism. Collecting data on child progress and trainer skills. This collection is usually done by pen-and-paper systems, but as more powerful and user friendly electronic devices become available to more people the use of electronic devices will probably increase.
Tarbox and colleagues has published a study comparing the use of electronic data collection to traditional pen-and-paper data collection in discrete trail training, using the mTrail software. The authors points out several possible benefits of electronic data collection:
- electronic storage
- electronic analyzing
- easier to collect real time data
- easier to collect a wider variety of data
In their study they systematically compared three aspects of data collection; electronically vs pen-and-paper. Their study shows that participants used moor time collecting data electronically than with pen and paper, the accuracy in data collection was slightly better using pen-and-paper, but the time graphing data was shorter using electronically data collection.
This i somewhat surprising as one of the main reasons for using electronic devices to collect data is to do it faster, better and more accurate. But of course this study is limited by the number of participants (4), and one software (the mTrail). And the participants had significant more experience doing pen-and-paper data collection. But it is great to see that this aspect of EIBI is systematically investigated, and future studies on this area may show different results.