title: Assessing progress during treatment for young children with autism receiving intensive behavioural interventions.
abstract: This study examined progress after 1 year of treatment for children with autism who received a mean of 36 hours per week one-to-one University of California at Los Angeles Applied Behavior Analysis (UCLA ABA) treatment. Two types of service provision were compared: an intensive clinic based treatment model with all treatment personnel (N = 23), and an intensive parent managed treatment model with intensive supervision only (N = 21). A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants (N = 13) examined whether progress was associated with ABA treatment or confounders. Between intake and follow-up, children in both groups improved significantly on IQ, visual-spatial IQ, language comprehension, expressive language, social skills, motor skills and adaptive behaviour. There were no significant differences between the two groups on any of the measures at follow-up. Mean IQ for participants in both groups increased by 16 points between intake and follow-up. These findings are consistent with previous studies demonstrating the benefits of ABA treatment.
authors.affiliation: UK Young Autism Project, UK.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hayward
authors.forename: Svein
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eikeseth
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gale
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Morgan
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011585:Psychology, Applied; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D016896:Treatment Outcome