ABA
& Autism
ABA
based treatment is now considered the state-of-the-art educational
intervention for children with autism.
For example, in 1999, the New York State Department of Health
worked with a balanced panel of autism experts to publish Clinical
Practice Guidelines for young children with autism.
The panel reviewed research on a variety of treatment
methodologies and cited ABA as a critical element in any
intervention program for young children with autism.
The panel further recommended that intensive ABA based
programs include a minimum of 20 hours per week of treatment.
That same year, in the Surgeon General of the United States’
first report on mental health, intensive ABA based treatment was
cited as an effective intervention for children with autism.
Research
applying the principles and techniques of ABA to the treatment of
children with autism began in the 1960’s and 1970’s with studies
by Ivar Lovaas, Montrose Wolf, Todd Risley, Robert Koegel, and Laura
Schreibman, just to name a few.
Since then numerous studies have been published in
well-respected, peer-reviewed scientific journals documenting early
and intensive ABA based intervention as the most effective
treatment for children with autism and related disorders.
The first
and most well-known of these studies was published in 1987 by Dr.
Ivar Lovaas. Dr. Lovaas and his colleagues found that out of 19
young children who received 40 hours a week of one-to-one
behavioral
treatment for two or more years, nearly half (47%) achieved IQ
scores in the normal range (94-120) and were successfully
mainstreamed into regular education.
Another 42% were found to be mildly mentally retarded and
only 10% were considered profoundly retarded following treatment.
These children were compared to children in two control
groups. The 19 children
in the first control group received 10 hours of 1:1 behavioral
intervention from the UCLA Young Autism Project combined with
special education. The
21 children in the second control group received similar services to
the children in the first control group, but were treated at an
outside facility. No
children in the first control group and only one child in the second
control group achieved normal intellectual and educational
functioning. 45% were
found to be mildly mentally retarded and 53% were considered
profoundly retarded.
In order to
determine whether the significant treatment gains achieved with
early intensive behavioral intervention would be long-lasting,
McEachin, Smith, and Lovaas (1993) conducted a follow-up study of
the 9 best-outcome children from Lovaas’ 1987 study and found that
these gains were maintained over approximately a ten-year period.
More
recently, Sallows and Graupner (2005) presented preliminary findings
from their replication of the Lovaas’ work and found that
following three years of treatment 46% of children who received
intensive one-to-one ABA based intervention (11 out of 24) achieved
normal intellectual functioning and were functioning normally on
measures of reciprocal social interaction.
Furthermore, children who received early intensive behavioral
intervention gained an average of 23 IQ points while the IQ’s of
children in the control group who attended special education classes
remained about the same.
