Autism Therapy: pivotal response training

Future research may allow therapists to know in advance which type of applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) is most likely to work for any given child with autism.

While many children with autism respond well to ABA therapy, not all children show a good response to all types of ABA therapy. This study of six children was designed to see if it is possible to predict which type of ABA therapy will work for which child with autism. The authors were able to predict which children would respond to pivotal response training, but not which ones would respond to discrete trial training. The authors note that all children were first exposed to pivotal response training and then to discrete trial training and this may have influenced the results. Children who liked toys were more likely to respond to pivotal response training than children who did not like toys.