Comparison of Behavioural and Natural Play Interventions for Young Children with Autism

Abstract

The article reports the results of a pilot study comparing traditional behavioural approaches and natural play interventions for young children with autism over a 10 week period. Two matched groups of eight young children with autism participated. Using a crossover design, children in both groups showed positive gains in compliance, attending, play and communication with their therapists and parents. Improvements in attending and compliance were higher following the behavioural condition compared with the natural play condition. Seven participants had reduced autism scores after the intervention. The findings suggest that behavioural and play approaches affect behaviour in different ways and that autistic symptomatology of young children may be amenable to treatment. The discussion focuses on the active ingredients of treatments and the need to base efficacy research on well-planned treatment comparisons.

Pivotal Response Treatment for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review

“…For example, Koegel et al (2010b) measured the children's productivity (i.e., rate of assignment units completed) and latency (i.e., number of minutes it took children to begin a task) during writing or math activities. Finally, one study evaluated the effects of PRT on face processing and neural response (Voos et al 2013) and another study evaluated the effects of PRT on attendance and compliance (Bernard-Opitz et al 2004). …”

Orientação a mães de crianças do espectro autístico a respeito da comunicação e linguagem

“…Most of the reported weaknesses refer to issues of communication and behavior and the unpleasant situations refer to times when the children present behavioral disorders (that mothers tend to associate with situations such as crowds, noisy or unknown environments and activities of daily living). These situations are the often described in the literature as characteristic of this group of patients and as a source of stress for parents (3,6,10) . The importance of group situations to orientation activities for parents of autistic children also have been mentioned (4) and confirmed by this study.…”

Picture Me Playing: Increasing Pretend Play Dialogue of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…These findings should be considered in conjunction with the growing body of research in support of visual strategies (e.g. Ganz and Flores 2008;Johnson et al 2003) and the intermingling of behavioral and naturalistic approaches to intervention (Bernard-Optiz et al 2004;Lifter et al 1993;Malone 2003;Prizant and Wetherby 1998). Although it is critical to provide specific and direct instruction, even scripted dialogue to children with ASD, it is just as important to provide intervention in the natural environment during meaningful communicative interactions (Goldstein 2002).…”