| Abstract: Significant progress has been made toward identifying effective interventions for preschool-age children with autism (National Research Council, 2001). However, because interventions are lengthy, complex, time consuming, and expensive, pinpointing active ingredients that contribute to outcome (e.g., method, dose, timing, content) is essential in order to streamline and increase efficacy. This talk will consider curriculum content on core deficits in autism as one important active ingredient of early intervention. Data from a recent RCT for preschool children with autism will be described in which children participating in early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) were randomized to receive brief targeted interventions in joint attention, symbolic play or EIBI only. Results of these targeted interventions yielded significant effects on initiating joint attention, and diversity and level of symbolic play. Children were also tested six and 12 months post-intervention. Compared to the control children, both targeted interventions had significant effects on childrens expressive language one year later. Several important moderators of treatment response were also found, including pre-treatment language and nonverbal communication abilities. Thus, these data provide information on potential intervention targets for improving language outcome in young children with autism, as well as information on who benefits most from the specific treatments. |