VOICES FROM THE FIELD- Intervention in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Clinicians working with young children with autism rely on the outcomes of intervention research in order to develop best practices in their work. We should be encouraged by research efforts to identify treatments across professional fields that are effective for this population. However, clinicians from all professional disciplines continue to struggle with matching interventions to individual children and families. Making clinical recommendations as to the type, content and intensity of each intervention for each unique child is an ongoing problem. Papers appearing in the online encyclopedia of the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development1-3 review the effects of varied interventions for young children with autism, including social/emotional development, which is of particular interest to front-line clinicians. An examination of the research cited by Harris1 and by Bruinsma, Koegel and Kern Koegel2 reveals that the field of applied behaviour analysis has contributed the majority of the intervention research in autism. However, the field may be somewhat remiss in the apparent lesser focus on efforts to address improving social competence. More importantly, the method of discrete teaching of social skills, typically with extrinsi