Culturally responsive interventions for autistic children and their families have been developed and implemented to address issues related to limited representation, inequities, and disparities in access to care of minoritized families in research. Currently available reviews are relatively limited in scope or do not synthesize interventions…

To date there are no evidence-based comprehensive interventions for use in school settings. There are numerous barriers to delivery of high-quality interventions in schools that have limited the transfer of research-based interventions to school settings. "Modular Approach to Autism Programing for Schools (MAAPS)" is a framework for…

Students with autism often show challenges in social communication, particularly in initiating and responding behaviors. While the classroom offers a natural context for peer interactions, few interventions are designed specifically for classroom settings. This study investigated the effects of a classroom-teacher implemented social communication…

This systematic review describes a set of practices that have evidence of positive effects with autistic children and youth. This is the third iteration of a review of the intervention literature (Odom et al. in J Autism Dev Disorders 40(4):425-436, 2010a; Prevent School Fail 54(4):275-282, 2010b; Wong et al. in…

The autism intervention literature focuses heavily on the concept of evidence-based practice, with less consideration of the acceptability, feasibility, and contextual alignment of interventions in practice. A survey of 130 special educators was conducted to quantify this "social validity" of evidence-based practices and analyze its…

This single-case investigation was designed to evaluate the effects of telehealth training on practitioner implementation of a naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention (NDBI). Six general education preschool practitioners engaged in an intervention with six children with varying disabilities in inclusive classroom settings. The…

This study investigated whether a brief parent-mediated intervention would increase the frequency of question asking in children with ASD. Mothers participated in a 3-week training consisting of 2-h sessions twice weekly. Data were collected in the context of concurrent multiple baseline design. Results demonstrate all three children increased…

Conclusions about the efficacy of tele-therapy for parent-mediated intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are limited, due to the shortage of direct comparisons between tele-therapy and traditional face-to-face therapy. In this study, we implemented a parent training program, which targeted on language facilitating…

In the current study, we describe a study of the Internet-based Parent-implemented Communication Strategies-Storybook (i-PiCSS). I-PiCSS is an intervention program designed to train and coach parents to use evidence-based naturalistic communication teaching (NCT) strategies (i.e., modeling, mand-model, and time delay) and reading techniques while…

Research has demonstrated that caregivers' use of intervention strategies can support their children's social engagement and communication. However, it is not clear to what degree caregivers must master the strategies to effectively support gains in social communication, specifically, core challenges such as joint attention language (comments).…

This study examined waiting times for diagnostic assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorder in 11 adult services, prior to and following the implementation of a 12 month change program. Methods to support change are reported and a multi-level modelling approach determined the effect of the change program on overall wait times. Results were…

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a comprehensive program model originally developed by the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder (NPDC). Sixty elementary schools with 486 participants were randomly assigned to an NPDC and services as usual condition (SAU). Significantly greater changes in program…

Restricted repetitive behaviors (RRB) are one of the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Evidence suggests that higher-order RRB (H-RRB) are particularly challenging and can negatively impact family functioning (e.g., insistence on sameness, following idiosyncratic routines). The study examined the effects of a parent-implemented…

Notably absent from the intervention literature are parent training programs targeting school-aged children with autism who have limited communication skills (Tager-Flusberg and Kasari in "Autism Res" 6:468-478, 2013). Sixty-one children with autism age 5-8 with minimal spontaneous communication received a 6-month social communication…

An important line of research relates to whether school personnel, such as paraprofessionals, who are present during unstructured social periods, such as lunch-recess, could successfully implement interventions to improve socialization between students with ASD and their typical peers in a group setting. Therefore, within the context of a multiple…