The TEACCH Program in the Era of Evidence-Based Practice.
The focus on evidence-based interventions and practices in educating and treatment of children with autism have been strong for some time, and there seems to create some debate between different educational approaches. And in this issue of Journal of Autism and other Developmental disorders there are published another contribution to this debate.
Gary Mesibov (the director of TEACCH) and Shea has published a paper named: The TEACCH Program in the Era of Evidence-Based Practices.
In this paper the authors discuss the concept of evidence-based practice and based on the definitions and principles given by APA (2006) and Kazdin (2008) they propose some core principles for evidence-based practices. In this principles and their discussion they focus on the use of other sources of evidence particullary clinical expertise which according to the authors “can be reflected in experience and professional reputation“.
This may pose some problems in evaluating and determining what constitutes evidence-based practices. It may contribute to broaden our knowledge on what is effective for children with autism. But the use of defined and replicable research designs will probably contribute in an other extent to valid and established knowledge.
Based on the authors concurrent of the broader definition of evidence-based practice which incorporates clinical expertise and flexibility, the authors argues that their approach, TEACCH, contributes to the evidence base of autism interventions.
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