Speech and Language Newsletter
April 2019
Dear Parents,
April is Autism Awareness Month. Each year on April 2, communities around the world light the color blue in recognition of people living with autism. The goal is to increase understanding, acceptance and foster worldwide support. Below you will find evidence-based treatment for working with individuals with autism.
Regards,
Mrs. Davidova, Ms. Grunfeld, Mrs. Nardo, Mrs. Trevicano, & Ms. Voulkidis
Evidence-Based Practices for Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders: Tip and Resources for Families
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center
What evidence-based practices have been identified for treatment of ASD?
The National Autism Center has identified the following treatments as established, evidence-based treatments.
Antecedent Package: These approaches to treatment involve making changes to the environment prior to the onset of problem behavior.
Joint Attention Intervention: These interventions serve to increase the ability of individuals with ASD to focus on an object or activity jointly with another person and are a fundamental part of communication and social skill development.
Modeling: This strategy for instruction shows the child or adult precisely what behavior or skill should be exhibited through an explicit set of examples.
Naturalistic Teaching Strategies: These strategies can be used to teach a wide variety of skills in a real life, contextualized format that is child-directed and likely to lead to generalized success with the skill
Peer Training Package: These approaches include training peers how to interact with a child who has ASD, and then facilitating these interactions as the treatment itself.
Pivotal Response Training: This treatment is designed to target fundamentally important skills by creating situations in the natural environment that will teach skills and improve social interactions for children with ASD.
Schedules: These are used to help a child with ASD to organize their time, anticipate upcoming activities, and reduce confusion and stress.
Self-management: These strategies teach children with ASD ways to complete tasks independently and to evaluate and record their performance as a means of increasing motivation and independence.
Story-Based Intervention Package: These interventions provide instruction for an upcoming event using written descriptions that clarify expectations or skills that are being targeted.
Adapted from: https://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/assets/files/tipsheets/ebptreatasdtips.pdf