EVALUATING TREATMENTS
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When a child receives a diagnosis of autism, parents are immediately faced with many important decisions. Choosing a treatment for your child can be a confusing and overwhelming process. While you can easily find information about a variety of treatment approaches, sometimes the extensive amount of information available makes it more difficult to navigate the decision process. As you learn about different interventions, you may come across many promising options. Various treatment providers may claim that their methods provide the greatest potential for improving your child’s outcome. You may also learn about the concept of “evidence-based treatment.” So how do you sift through all of this information and go about making the right decision for your child and family? Choosing a treatment approach for your child with autism is similar to choosing a treatment for any medical condition—ideally you will use an approach that has been thoroughly researched and proven to work. Treatment outcomes should provide evidence that the intervention helped participants learn new skills or reduce levels of challenging behavior, and that minimal or no side effects were observed as a result of the treatment. These outcomes should reflect meaningful and positive changes in the individual’s life. To date, there has been substantial research demonstrating the effectiveness of certain treatments. Unfortunately, however, many treatments marketed to the autism community do not demonstrate any scientific evidence of effectiveness, yet they often receive more attention in the media and the community. While it is certainly important to be optimistic and open to promising treatments, parents should also be cautious of treatments that have not been tested. It is therefore essential for parents to review all of the options carefully in order to make informed treatment decisions for their child. These decisions will have a direct impact on the quality of treatment the child receives and may ultimately save the family valuable time that could be lost when pursuing ineffective treatments. Given the complexity of reviewing the research to make these decisions, the National Autism Center recently assembled a large group of researchers to evaluate the existing studies on autism treatment. The findings were widely disseminated through the National Standards Project Phase I (2009) and Phase II (2015). In Phase I, Researchers carefully examined 775 studies of various treatment options, resulting in the classification of treat- ments into the following categories: established (significant research supports the effectiveness of these treat- ments), emerging (some research supports the effectiveness, although further research is warranted), and unestablished (no sound evidence of effectiveness exists). Phase II provides an update to the literature for interventions for those under age 22, and also included studies evaluating interventions for adults (22+). This categorization provides a structure from which parents can make informed treatment decisions. Autism New Jersey utilizes a similar classification system, which is outlined in the agency’s Position Statement on Treatment Recommendations. This classification system uses a traffic light as an analogy for understanding treatment recommendations: green light interventions are recommended, yellow light interventions should only be used cautiously, and red light interventions should be avoided due to proven ineffectiveness. The National Standards Project concluded that interventions derived from applied behavior analysis (ABA) demonstrated the most consistent and positive results for individuals with ASD. ABA is an umbrella term for a number of techniques and treatment packages. ABA treatment is individualized and adapted for the learner, and the intensity of treatment is matched to the person’s need. There is an emphasis on using a person’s motivations to make therapy fun and engaging, while teaching the individual new skills. ABA has also been proven effective in reducing challenging behaviors. For more detailed information about ABA, see page 22.
Full reports from the National Standards Project are available to download at www.nationalautismcenter.org
Furthermore, the Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT) provides descriptions of autism interventions and the current state of research supporting or failing to support these interventions on their website: www.asatonline.org .
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