Effective Intervention Program features
Interventions Supported by Research
Examples of Therapeutic Intervention Programs
Other Models of Intervention
Goals for Educational Services
Key Points and Next Steps

Developmental Programs

The approach of the Developmental Intervention Model is based upon the assumption that a child's symptoms reflect unique biologically based processing difficulties that may involve emotional regulation, sensory modulation and processing and motor planning. Relationships and emotional interactions may go awry secondarily, and intervention is aimed at helping a child try to work around the processing difficulties to reestablish affective contact.

The Floortime Model

http://www.floortime.org/index.php

Developed by Dr's Greenspan and Wieder, the Floortime Model provides for intense floor time sessions at home are aimed at "pulling the child into a greater degree of pleasure." The curriculum is aimed at six developmental capacities: shared attention and regulation; engagement; affective reciprocity and communications through gestures; complex, pre-symbolic, shared social communication and problem-solving; symbolic and creative use of ideas; and logical and abstract use of ideas and thinking.

Denver Model at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center

http://www.uchsc.edu/psychiatry/Research/Autism/Default.htm

This program originally opened in 1981 as the Playschool Model, which was a demonstration day treatment program. This developmentally oriented instructional approach is based on the premise that play is a primary vehicle for learning social, emotional, communicative, and cognitive skills during early childhood. The role of the adult and the purpose of play activities vary across learning objectives. The overarching curriculum goals are to increase cognitive levels, particularly in the area of symbolic functions; increase communication through gestures, signs, and words; and enhance social and emotional growth through interpersonal relationships with adults and peers.

Pivotal Response Model at the University of California at Santa Barbara

http://www.education.ucsb.edu/autism/

Beginning in 1979, components of the current model were evaluated in applications with children of varied ages. In recent years, the primary focus has been on early intervention. Using a parent education approach, the ultimate goal of the Pivotal Response Model is to provide individuals with autism with the social and educational proficiency to participate in inclusive settings. In early stages, this model used a discrete-trial applied behavior analysis approach, but there has been a shift toward use of more naturalistic behavioral interventions. The overriding strategy is to aim at change in certain pivotal areas (e.g., responsiveness to multiple cues, motivation, self-management, and self-initiations). Intervention consists of in-clinic and one-on-one home teaching, and children concurrently participate in special education services in the schools. Specific curriculum goals are targeted in areas of communication, self-help, academic, social, and recreational skills.

Hybrid or Eclectic Models

Within this category are examples of programs that attempted to combine what works well from two or more models while discarding components that are more restrictive to a child's progress and growth.

Douglass Developmental Center at Rutgers University

http://www.education.ucsb.edu/autism/

The center opened in 1972 to serve older children with autism; the preschool programs were added in 1987. Douglass now has a continuum of three programs that serve young children with autistic spectrum disorders, including an intensive home-based intervention, a small-group segregated preschool, and an integrated preschool. The curriculum is developmentally sequenced and uses applied behavior analysis techniques, beginning with discrete-trial formats naturalistic procedures. Initial instruction is focused on teaching compliance, cognitive and communication skills, rudimentary social skills, and toilet training, as well as on the elimination of serious behavior problems. The small-group classroom emphasizes communication, cognitive skills, and self-help skills; social intervention begins in the form of interactive play with teachers. The emphasis in the integrated classroom is on communication, socialization, and pre-academic skills.

Learning Experiences, an Alternative Program for Preschoolers and their Parents (LEAP) Preschool at the University of Colorado School of Education

http://depts.washington.edu/pdacent/sites/ucd.html

LEAP opened in 1982 as a federally funded demonstration program and soon after incorporated into the Early Childhood Intervention Program at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh. In recent years, the original classrooms continue to operate in Pittsburgh, but new LEAP classrooms are now being developed in the Denver Public School System. LEAP includes both a preschool program and a behavioral skill training program for parents, as well as national outreach activities. LEAP was one of the first programs in the USA to include children with autism with typical children, and the curriculum is well-known for its peer-mediated social skill interventions. An individualized curriculum targets goals in social, emotional, language, adaptive behavior, cognitive, and physical developmental areas. The curriculum blends a behavioral approach with developmentally appropriate practices.

Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children (TEACCH) at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill

http://www.teacch.com/

Developed in the early 1970's by its founder, Eric Schopler, the TEACCH approach includes a focus on the person with autism and the development of a program around that person's skills, interests, and needs. The major priorities include centering on the individual, understanding autism, adopting appropriate adaptations, and a broadly-based intervention strategy building on existing skills and interests. The person is the priority, rather than any philosophical notion like inclusion, discrete trial training, facilitated communication, etc. TEACCH emphasizes individualized assessment to understand the individual better and also "the culture of autism," suggesting that people with autism are part of a distinctive group with common characteristics that are different, but not necessarily inferior, to the rest of humanity.

TEACCH is based on a structured teaching approach, in which environments are organized with clear, concrete, visual information. Parents are co-therapists and taught strategies for working with their children. Programming is based on individualized assessments of a child's strengths, learning style, interests, and needs, so that the materials selected, the activities developed, the work system for the child, and the schedule for learning are tailored to this assessment information and to the needs of the family. TEACCH has developed a communication curriculum that makes use of behavioral procedures, with adjustments that incorporate more naturalistic procedures along with alternative communication strategies for nonverbal children.

Walden Early Childhood Programs at the Emory University School of Medicine

http://www.psychiatry.emory.edu/PROGRAMS/autism/Contact.html

The Walden program was developed in 1985 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where the primary function was as a laboratory preschool to accommodate research in incidental teaching. Following relocation to Emory University in Atlanta, toddler and pre-kindergarten programs were added to complete an early intervention continuum. The classrooms include children with autism with a majority of typical peers. The incidental teaching approach is based on behavioral research, although there are developmental influences on goal selection.

There is a toddler program with both center- and home-based components, and initial goals include establishment of sustained engagement, functional verbal language, responsiveness to adults, tolerance and participation with typical peers, and independence in daily living (e.g., toilet training). The preschool is aimed at language expansions and beginning peer interaction training. The pre-kindergarten emphasizes elaborated peer interactions, academic skills, and conventional school behaviors.

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