Development of the Evaluative Method for Evaluating and Determining Evidence-Based Practices in Autism

Layperson Summary:

Evidence-based autism therapies are hard to find and so there may be a need to look at autism therapy research in a different way.

This review article describes the evidence behind autism therapy and the problems with autism therapy research. The authors describe a way to collect the results from group research and single subject research (case studies). One of the hard things for the authors was coming up with a system for weighing case studies against group studies. They believe that they have proposed the first set of criteria to be used in judging whether or not an autism intervention is evidence-based. These criteria are most useful when looking at whether or not to use an autism treatment on a young child.

Scientific Abstract