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Tero Toivanen

Early intervention for toddlers with autism highly effective, study finds - 1 views

  • The study, published online today in the journal Pediatrics, examined an intervention called the Early Start Denver Model, which combines applied behavioral analysis (ABA) teaching methods with developmental 'relationship-based' approaches.
  • The five-year study took place at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and was led by Dawson, then a professor of psychology and director of the university's Autism Center, in partnership with Rogers. It involved therapy for 48 diverse, 18- to 30-month-old children with autism and no other health problems.
  • At the conclusion of the study, the IQs of the children in the intervention group had improved by an average of approximately 18 points, compared to a little more than four points in the comparison group. The intervention group also had a nearly 18-point improvement in receptive language (listening and understanding) compared to approximately 10 points in the comparison group. Seven of the children in the intervention group had enough improvement in overall skills to warrant a change in diagnosis from autism to the milder condition known as 'pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified,' or PDD-NOS. Only one child in the community-based intervention group had an improved diagnosis.
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  • In this study, the intervention was provided in a toddler's natural environment (their home) and delivered by trained therapists and parents who received instruction and training as part of the model.
  • Parents are taught strategies for capturing their children's attention and promoting communication. By using these strategies throughout the day, the children were offered many opportunities to learn to interact with others.
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    A novel early intervention program for very young children with autism - some as young as 18 months - is effective for improving IQ, language ability, and social interaction, a comprehensive new study has found.
Tero Toivanen

Pivotal Response Intervention: Introduction - 0 views

  • Current research into strategies for children with ASD indicates that the most efficient and effective interventions for these children include the following characteristics: (a) attention to student motivation, (b) teaching the student to respond to a variety of cues, (c) self-instruction procedures, and (d) teaching the student to learn through initiating to others (Koegel et al., 2001). These are known as pivotal areas of instruction for individuals with ASD and make up an approach called Pivotal Response Intervention (PRI).
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    Pivotal Response Intervention: Introduction
Tero Toivanen

Autism Information - Autism Information You Need To Know - 1 views

  • There are plenty of myths about autism spectrum disorders out there.
  • But even those of use who are well-grounded in autism basics may be surprised by some of these facts, which are emerging from recent research.
  • We do know what causes autism -- but only in about 20% of cases.
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  • Quite a few children who are diagnosed with autism at a very young age are no longer diagnosable with autism by the time they’re school-aged.
  • Whatever the reasons, many children who are diagnosed with autism as toddlers will not be diagnosable by the time they're in fifth grade.
  • Early intervention (diagnosis and treatment prior to age three) is very helpful indeed, but there is no “window of opportunity” that slams shut at a certain age. Thus, even children who are diagnosed later or receive less early intervention may do quite well in the long run.
  • Early intervention does, however, provide a now-or-never opportunity to allow non-verbal children to develop some kind of useful tool for communication (picture cards, signs, or even spelling boards).
  • There is no official “cure” for autism. In fact, researchers like Dr. Susan Levy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia argue that even when a young child is no longer diagnosable on the autism spectrum, he is probably still autistic.
  • Late talking is not an indication of a poor prognosis.
  • Children with autism may or may not be visual thinkers. Thus, school programs designed with visual thinking in mind may or may not be appropriate for any individual child with autism.
  • After many years of research, we still don’t know which treatments are most effective for which children -- or whether one treatment is more effective than another. Behavioral interventions are the best-researched treatments for autism, but even top scientists acknowledge that developmental interventions may or may not be equally useful for any given child. Meanwhile, only two drugs -- Risperdal and Abilify -- have been approved for use with children on the autism spectrum, and neither addresses “core” issues of autism (social/communication deficits).
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    Important facts and information about autism.
Graeme Wadlow

Interventions to Improve Communication in Autism - 0 views

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    Interventions to Improve Communication in Autism Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America Volume 17, Issue 4, October 2008, Pages 835-856 Treating Autism Spectrum Disorders Rhea Paul PhD, Yale Child Study Center
Graeme Wadlow

Randomized, Controlled Trial of an Intervention for Toddlers With Autism: The Early Sta... - 0 views

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    Randomized, Controlled Trial of an Intervention for Toddlers With Autism: The Early Start Denver Model
Tero Toivanen

Pivotal Response Teaching - 0 views

  • Pivotal Response Teaching  is an Advanced Behavioral Treatment intervention based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and derived from the work of Drs. Koegel, Schreibman, Dunlap, Horner, Burke and other researchers.
  • PRT builds upon the older ABA paradigms and has a focus on targeting “Pivotal” skills or behaviors in order to produce more broad changes in a child’s development.
  • Pivotal Response Training (PRT) provides a guideline for teaching skills and has been most successful for language, play and social interaction skills in children with autism and related disorders. 
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    Pivotal Response Teaching is an Advanced Behavioral Treatment intervention based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and derived from the work of Drs. Koegel, Schreibman, Dunlap, Horner, Burke and other researchers.
Tero Toivanen

Pivotal Response Intervention: Lecture Page 4 - 0 views

  • 1) Children have the opportunity to make choices throughout the teaching session.
  • 2) Alternating between mastered tasks and novel ones.
  • 3) The child’s attempts are reinforced as are his/her accurate responses.
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  • 4) The teacher and child take turns.
  • 5) Reinforcers presented are related to the task.
Tero Toivanen

Facilitated Communication - Association for Science in Autism Treatment - 2 views

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     "Research evidence, replicated across several hundred children with autism spectrum disorders, shows that the facilitators rather than the individuals with autism spectrum disorders control the communication and that FC does not improve language skills (Mostert, 2001). Therefore, FC is an inappropriate intervention for individuals with autism spectrum disorders."
Tero Toivanen

Research Unearths New Treatments for Autism - 2 views

  • The Utah researchers found that children receiving a combination of the two treatments (Lovaas-type training at school and TEACCH methods at home) showed three to four times greater progress on all outcome tests than did children who received only the school-based treatment. That study was reported in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Vol. 28, No. 1, p. 2532).
  • Researchers in Washington, D.C., are comparing a discrete trial training approach with a "developmental, individual-difference, relationship based" (DIR) approach, says child psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan, MD, professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical School.
  • Psychologist Robert Koegel, PhD, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his colleagues are attempting to tailor a standard treatment to the specific needs of an autistic child and family. The standard treatment is called pivotal response training
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  • An initial retrospective study is comparing two groups of 20 children initially diagnosed with autism who were functioning well after two or more years of treatment, either with a discrete trial training approach or the DIR approach. The study aims to determine if treatment differences lead to subtle differences in outcome, for example, in terms of flexibility, emotional range, creativity and richness of the child's inner life. Investigators are planning to follow this research with a prospective, randomized, more rigorous study of the two approaches.
  • "In our previous studies we found out that it looks like you can't just deliver a standard treatment to autistic kids, that there's so much variability among the children that what works for one child doesn't work for another child," he says. "Our hypothesis is that...unless you individualize treatment, you're not going to get the best effect."
  • Researchers at the University of Maryland are testing an intervention to trigger children's "social engagement system," which includes behaviors such as listening, looking, facial expressions and vocalizations that support social interaction, says psychologist Stephen Porges, PhD. The treatment is designed to improve autistic children's ability to interact with others, thereby making them more receptive to traditional therapies.
  • The intervention is based on the theory that tensing the middle ear muscles enables people to pick out the human voice from lower frequency sounds in the environment, Porges says. Treatment involves exercising middle ear muscles by playing music that has been altered to include only frequencies associated with the human voice, which improves one's ability to listen to human voices. This, in turn, stimulates the entire social engagement system, Porges says. About 80 percent of 50 children with autism or other behavioral problems receiving this treatment via five 45-minute sessions in a double blind, randomized controlled study showed marked improvements in listening, language and other communication skills.
  • In a report last year in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Vol. 28, No. 1, p. 15-23) evaluating an intensive home-based discrete trial training intervention, Stephen Sheinkopf, PhD, of the University of Miami and Bryna Siegel, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, noted that children receiving an average of only 21 hours per week of treatment showed gains in IQ comparable to those achieved by children receiving 32 hours per week. The intensity question remains an issue of importance for the autism community. "If we need 40 hours a week, fine," says psychologist Geraldine Dawson, PhD, of the University of Washington. "But if you only need 25, you have to realize that 40 hours is a tremendous burden not only financially, but on families and on the child."
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    Several treatments, and combinations of treatments, are under intense study.
Graeme Wadlow

Evidence-Based Practices in Interventions for Children and Youth with Autism Spectrum D... - 0 views

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    VPSF_A_479072.indd - Powered by Google Docs
Tero Toivanen

Easter Seals and Autism » Blog Archive » Looking for hard evidence on P.L.... - 1 views

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    Study to determine the effectiveness of P.L.A.Y. and DIR Floortime intervention strategy designed to meet the intensive needs of children with autism spectrum disorders.
Graeme Wadlow

Interventions to Facilitate Auditory, Visual, and Motor Integration in Autism: A Review... - 0 views

Graeme Wadlow

Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders - 0 views

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    Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Tero Toivanen

Facilitated communication: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article - 1 views

  • The procedure is controversial, since a majority of peer reviewPeer reviewPeer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review...ed scientific studies conclude that the typed language output attributed to the clients is directed or systematically determined by the therapists who provide facilitated assistance. Some peer-reviewed scientific studies have indicated instances of valid FC, and some FC users have reportedly gone on to type independently.
  • Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units... psychologist Daniel WegnerDaniel WegnerDaniel M. Wegner is an American social psychologist. He is a professor of psychology at Harvard University and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is known for his work on mental control and conscious will, and for originating the study of transactive memory and... has argued that facilitated communication is a striking example of the ideomotor effectIdeomotor effectThe ideomotor effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. As in reflexive responses to pain, the body sometimes reacts reflexively to ideas alone without the person consciously deciding to take action..., the well-known phenomenon whereby individuals' expectations exert unconscious influence over their motor actions. Even FC users and proponents do acknowledge the possibility of facilitators at times "guiding" users, consciously or unconsciously. Other theorists (Donnellan and Leary, 1995) argue that autism is in significant part characterized by dyspraxia (a movement disorder), and that there exists a synchronistic "dance" to communication in all mammalian social interaction which accounts for the mixed results in validation studies.
  • Stephen von Tetzchner, the author of another leading textbook on Augmentative and Alternative CommunicationAugmentative and alternative communicationAugmentative and alternative communication is communication for those with impairments or restrictions on the production or comprehension of spoken or written language.-Definition :... has done theoretical research about facilitated communication. In his opinion "The existing evidence clearly demonstrates that facilitating techniques usually led to automatic writingAutomatic writingAutomatic writing is the process or production of writing material that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. Practitioners say that the writer's hand forms the message, with the person being unaware of what will be written...., displaying the thoughts and the attitudes of the facilitators."
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  • Mark Mostert (2001) says: "Previous reviews of Facilitated Communication (FC) studies have clearly established that proponents' claims are largely unsubstantiated and that using FC as an intervention for communicatively impaired or noncommunicative individuals is not recommended." In March 2007, Scott Lilienfeld included facilitated communication on a list of treatments that have the potential to cause harm in clients, published in the APSAssociation for Psychological ScienceThe Association for Psychological Science , previously the American Psychological Society, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare... journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
  • The phrase "independent typing" is defined by supporters of FC as "typing without physical support", i.e., without being touched by another person. Skeptics of FC do not agree that this definition of independence suffices because of the possibility of influence by the facilitator. For example, Sue RubinSue RubinSue Rubin is a functionally non-verbal published autistic author who was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Autism Is A World in which she communicated via the controversial communication technique of facilitated communication...., an FC user featured in the autobiographical documentary Autism Is A World, reportedly types without anyone touching her; however, she reports that she requires a facilitator to hold the keyboard and offer other assistance.
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    The procedure is controversial, since a majority of peer reviewed scientific studies conclude that the typed language output attributed to the clients is directed or systematically determined by the therapists who provide facilitated assistance. Some peer-reviewed scientific studies have indicated instances of valid FC, and some FC users have reportedly gone on to type independently.
Tero Toivanen

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Different MRI Findings in Autism - Autism not a Single Entity - 0 views

  • Studies such as this point out the problems of using only behavioral criteria to make the diagnosis of autism. In this study, a multidisciplinary team consisting for child psychiatrists, child psychologists, and speech therapists were used to make the diagnosis. With no hubris intended, we think a neurologist should be included on every autism team. Understanding the specific neurological challenges a child faces can help much more than a more one-size-fits-all approach to intervention.
  • When we have assessed children with an autism or possible autism diagnosis, we have seen the same very wide clinical variation in terms of neurological exam - you would not treat a child with visual processing disorders with purely behavioral modification, nor a child with auditory and language processing problems with facial recognition training.
  • Historically, autism was first recognized as an entity by a psychiatrist, but as it becomes even more clear that the behavioral label subsumes many different neurological conditions, it's time for business-as-usual to come to an end.
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    Studies such as this point out the problems of using only behavioral criteria to make the diagnosis of autism.
Tero Toivanen

Interview with Robert Koegel | Pivotal Response Treatments for Autism Author on ABC's S... - 1 views

  • The NLP became synonymous with motivation and motivation is pivotal in teaching children with autism to respond to multiple questions.
  • 1988 was the first time the word pivotal was used to describe this method. It was referred to previously as the NLP. It is considered a behavior intervention with similarities to the Lovaas method/ABA. 
  • Why would you say PRT is more effective than other therapies
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  • First and foremost, children think of it as fun and learn skills by doing what they enjoy.
  • PRT is effective in all of the child’s environments and versatile enough to use at home, in clinical settings, in an inclusive classroom, and in the community, and parents can easily start folding PRT strategies into the child's established routine right away.
  • How does PRT decrease stress for parents?
  • Children often hate having to perform drill practices involved with other autism treatments, they feel like they are being forced to do something they don't enjoy and they react to this by causing a scene to get out of treatment.
  • What exactly are "pivotal responses?"
  • "areas that are central to wide areas of functioning such that improvements occur across a large number of behaviors." 
    • Tero Toivanen
       
      Pivotal responses määrittely!!!
  • Once they understand the connection between using their own words and getting something they want, they will start to use words spontaneously to communicate their needs. Mastering this one pivotal behavior, motivating the child to understand the connection between their own efforts to communicate with the outcomes of their efforts, will have an enormous ripple effect on other skills.
    • Tero Toivanen
       
      In practice.
  • It works because there is a motivator that makes the child want to work to accomplish the task at hand, the reward for accomplishing the task has a direct connection to it.
  • PRT was named by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 as one of the top 10 state-of-the-art treatments for autism in the United States.
  • A child who is highly motivated to communicate and is having fun doing it will learn much more rapidly than a child who is not motivated and not enjoying what they are learning.
Tero Toivanen

Is Your Child Autistic -- Or Could He Have This Syndrome? - 0 views

  • Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland scientist and pediatric emergency medicine physician, Claudia Morris, MD says she has identified a syndrome which combines apraxia (a speech disorder) with symptoms often associated with autism. Many of these symptoms are precisely the ones that are pointed to by those whose children appear to benefit from biomedical treatments -- specifically Gluten and Casein-free diets and vitamin supplements.
  • The data clearly demonstrated a common cluster of allergy, apraxia and malabsorption, along with low muscle tone, poor coordination and sensory integration abnormalities. In addition, Dr. Morris was able to gather laboratory analyses in 26 of the children, which revealed low carnitine levels, abnormal celiac panels, gluten sensitivity, and vitamin D deficiency among others. All children genetically screened carried an HLA gene associated with gluten sensitivity and celiac disease.
  • Most significantly, the data indicate that the neurologic dysfunction represented in the syndrome overlaps the symptoms of vitamin E deficiency. While low vitamin E bioavailability may occur due to a variety of different causes, neurological consequences are similar, regardless of the initiating trigger. The study suggests that vitamin E could be used as a safe nutritional intervention that may benefit some children. Growing evidence support the benefits of omega 3 fatty acid supplementation in a number of neurodevelopmental disorders.
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  • Like all preliminary studies, this one is... preliminary. In other words, it has not been replicated, and the findings may turn out to be misleading.
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    Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland scientist and pediatric emergency medicine physician, Claudia Morris, MD says she has identified a syndrome which combines apraxia (a speech disorder) with symptoms often associated with autism. Many of these symptoms are precisely the ones that are pointed to by those whose children appear to benefit from biomedical treatments -- specifically Gluten and Casein-free diets and vitamin supplements.
Tero Toivanen

Autistic Aphorisms: Enhanced Perception in Savant Syndrome - 0 views

  • Mottron team did not shy away from suggesting that the features of savant syndrome could serve as an entryway into understanding all forms of autistic perception and cognition, savant like or not. This effectively removed savant syndrome from being the freak sideshow of autism and elevated it to the status of being a key element for understanding the condition.
  • it is orientation towards structure and pattern that determines the essential characteristics of autistic perception and cognition.
  • Not weak central coherence. Not damaged executive functioning. Not a missing theory of mind. Not a masculinized brain. Orientation to pattern and structure is the key to understanding autistic perception—an approach that is productive towards autistic interests and abilities, not destructive, as is the case for nearly every other competing theory. The Mottron team's emphasis on pattern-oriented perception in autistic individuals is a helpful step forward in understanding autistic individuals as they truly are.
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  • all the success stories related inside the pages of EPSS are accompanied by fortuitous exposure to various forms of structured material, clearly marking out the most promising path for autistic development and growth.
  • And of course these discussions fly in the face of the current clamor for early intervention in autism, where it would seem the goal is always to yank the autistic child away as early as possible from his or her preferred method of engaging the world, and substitute instead an intense bombardment of socially based indoctrination, hoping to turn the child around while there is still time for the “malleable” brain to be re-molded.
  • In my opinion, it is no mere coincidence that the very same elements that stand at the core of the Mottron team's affirmative description of autistic perception and cognition are also the very same elements that stand at the core of humanity’s sudden departure off the savannah and leap into the modern world.
  • Admittedly, a thorough discussion of such a topic would be much too large for inclusion in an academic research paper such as EPSS, but the fact that the Mottron team does not mention, or even hint at, the connection between the features of autistic perception and the features of human cognitive history leave it unclear whether the team has ever considered such a connection.
  • At this point in time, the Mottron team seems to be the only autism research team heading in a positive and enlightening direction—a direction that is constructive for autistic individuals everywhere—and I look forward to all their future contributions.
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