Much research exists supporting the efficacy of naturalistic behavioral interventions on increasing social communication skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, these evidence-based interventions are not consistently utilized in preschool classrooms. Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching was used to teach early intentional…

This brief clinical exchange article supports the use of milieu training (MT) as a communication treatment option for adults with severe intellectual disabilities (SID). It examines aspects of MT that appear well matched to the communication and other abilities of adults with SID. It also provides an argument that MT is not unlike functional…

Purpose: The intersection of treatment intensity and communication intervention is an emerging area of investigation. Milieu teaching (MT) approaches for teaching communication skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a substantial evidence base (see Goldstein, 2002). However, a relatively small percentage (37.8%) of MT studies…

Purpose: This investigation aimed to apply the dosage framework proposed by Warren, Fey, and Yoder (2007) to variations of milieu language teaching intervention strategies to explore how each of the dosage parameters (i.e., dose, dose form, dose frequency, total duration, and cumulative intervention intensity) was reported in the located…

Purpose: Children with autism display marked deficits in initiating and maintaining social interaction. Intervention using play routines can create a framework for developing and maintaining social interaction between these children and their communication partners. Method: Six nonverbal 5- to 8-year-olds with autism were taught to engage in…

Background: Considering the sensitive ethical issues related to involuntary treatment of adolescents, research investigating youth transport practices and treatment outcomes is clearly needed. Youth transport is common practice in many private pay programs, including wilderness therapy programs. Objective: This study of 350 adolescents in…

Children with intellectual disability were randomly assigned to receive Milieu Communication Teaching (MCT) at one 1-hr session per week (low dose frequency, LDF) or five 1-hr sessions per week (high dose frequency, HDF) over 9 months (Fey, Yoder, Warren, & Bredin-Oja, 2013. Non-Down syndrome (NDS) and Down syndrome (DS) subgroups were matched…

Purpose: The authors examined (a) whether dose frequency of milieu communication teaching (MCT) affects children's canonical syllabic communication and (b) whether the relation between early canonical syllabic communication and later spoken vocabulary is mediated by parental linguistic mapping in children with intellectual disabilities (ID).…

Purpose: We sought to confirm predictions based on past findings that pretreatment mean length of utterance (MLU) would predict which of 2 grammatical treatments would best facilitate generalized and maintained grammatical development in preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: The participants were 57 preschoolers with SLI. A…

This article seeks to provide a review of the theoretical and empirical literature in the field of wilderness therapy, the intent of which is to gain a greater conceptual understanding of the importance of the physical environment in therapeutic intervention. A review and consolidation of the existing literature reveal that the theories used to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) implemented by parents and therapists versus therapists only on the language skills of preschool children with intellectual disabilities (IDs), including children with Down syndrome and children with autism spectrum disorders. Method: Seventy-seven…

Purpose: The authors sought to determine whether a program of 5 weekly doses of milieu communication teaching (MCT) would yield improvements in children's communication and word use compared with a once-weekly delivery of the same treatment. Method: Sixty-four children with intellectual and communication delay were randomly assigned to receive…

This article refers to the results of a prospective effect evaluation study of three psychodynamic milieu-therapeutic institutions for children, which included cognitive and projective testing. After introducing milieu-therapy and explaining its roots in psychoanalytic and developmental thinking, the specific results of the research evaluation are…

A study combined group sweating and group counseling. Four adolescent boys with disruptive behavior disorders participated in 12 sweat therapy sessions. They reported the sessions useful for sharing personal concerns and receiving assistance with problem solving. Three boys showed improvement in self-esteem. Advantages of sweat therapy over other…

Reports experience with 14 adolescent cases of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Discusses adolescents' tendency not to cooperate with behavior therapy and medication, and the usefulness of psychotherapy in treating these patients. Concludes that non-specific milieu therapy leads to recovery in a majority of adolescent obsessive compulsives. Admits…