Nesrhten……….

The concept of evidence-based and scientifically based has received much attention within the psychological and educational areas for some time, and also in the field of autism interventions. But in autism interventions there have existed an exists some debate on the application of the term to autism interventions, and how to interpret these concepts to the field of autism intervention.

In the recent issue of Autism, vole 15 (2011) Mesibov and Shea has published their view on evidence-based practices and autism. The authors of this article claims that there is no agreement within the file about what constitutes effective, evidence-based treatment for the entire range of people with autism. But admits that there is some consensus about some aspects of interventions for some sub-groups of individuals with autism, particularly young children.

The continue by describing some of the benefits of an evidence-based approach and some of the challenges the field of autism interventions meets regarding evidence-based. Then the authors list some suggestions for defining and applying the concept of evidence-based to autism interventions. The article describes from my point of view several suggestions that may strengthen the field, but also some that are more problematic and may reduce the objectivity of research on autism interventions. Their proposal of reducing the rigidity of manualization may contribute to difficulties in replication, a fundamental part of science and research and may greatly reduce validity of the research. Even if I agree in their notion of a greater variety of outcome measures, research should concentrate on obtaining objective data to support the findings in studies. I finally find their suggestion of defining and rely on professional recognition in deterring evidence-base problematic as it most likely would be a daunting task to make this measure objective.