978-1572305441

Trevor 139
autistic behaviors—the echolalia, the motor mannerisms, and the behavior
problems—often diminish on their own. Reducing autistic behaviors
should be a goal only if they interfere with daily functioning or
with delivering therapy. In addition, punishments are no longer used.
Not only are punishments unethical, but if one of the goals of therapy is
to encourage the child to interact with others, particularly adults, then
delivering punishments will only teach children with ASD to be wary of
adults. Nor is it realistic to expect a cure, in spite of the claims of some
testimonials. Sometimes, however, the degree of improvement can be
quite remarkable and heartening.
This realization has been accompanied by increasing evidence that
early intervention can make a significant difference to the growth and
development of children with ASD. Children who are initially nonverbal
can begin to speak, children who do not follow simple directions
can now do so, children who are socially isolated can now start to play
with other children. Problems remain in the core difficulties of theory of
mind, of weak central coherence and executive function, but they seem
less severe. The impact of treatment is such that children with autism
look more and more like children with AS or atypical autism, and these
latter two groups look more and more like children with learning disabilities
or with attention deficit. They may not look or behave normally
all the time, but they are on a more developmentally appropriate
pathway.
The main approach to early intervention based on the available scientific
evidence is “applied behavioral analysis” (ABA), combined with
a developmental approach to autism. This generic method focuses on
understanding the function that behavior plays in a particular situation
and attempts to teach more developmentally appropriate behaviors with
a well-defined set of learning methodologies. By integrating ABA with a
developmental approach these skills are taught in a sequence that attempts
to follow typical developmental processes. These integrated
methods also take into account how children with ASD learn—how
they process information, especially information with a strong social
and communication component, at different stages of their development.
This can be much more difficult to accomplish than teaching
compliance or the utterance of simple words to indicate preference, and
it’s what makes the application of ABA to children with ASD more complicated
than to children with more general developmental delays.
There are several forms of early intervention, but the two most well
known are “discrete trial training” and naturalistic teaching or “social–