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Individual behavioral profiles and predictors of treatment effectiveness for children with autism.

Sherer MR, Schreibman L

Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA.

Differential responsiveness to intervention programs suggests the inadequacy of a single treatment approach for all children with autism. One method for reducing outcome variability is to identify participant characteristics associated with different outcomes for a specific intervention. In this investigation, an analysis of archival data yielded 2 distinct behavioral profiles for responders and nonresponders to a widely used behavioral intervention, pivotal response training (PRT). In a prospective study, these profiles were used to select 6 children (3 predicted responders and 3 predicted nonresponders) who received PRT. Children with pretreatment responder profiles evidenced positive changes on a range of outcome variables. Children with pretreatment nonresponder profiles did not exhibit improvements. These results offer promise for the development of individualized treatment protocols for children with autism.

Published 28 June 2005 in J Consult Clin Psychol, 73(3): 525-38.
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