Therapies for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Figure 2. Disposition of articles addressing therapies for children with ASDs
Non-duplicate articles
identified in searches
n = 4,120
● Literature search: n = 3,779
● Hand search/ grey literature
search: n = 341
Full text articles
reviewed
n=714
Unique full text
articles included in
review
n=183 (comprising
159 unique
studies)
154 KQ1
38 KQ2
4 KQ3
1 KQ4
17 KQ5
0 KQ6
4 KQ7
a The total number of articles in the exclusion categories exceeds the number of articles excluded because most of the
articles fit into multiple exclusion categories; KQ=key question
KQ1. Effects of Treatment on Core and Commonly Associated Symptoms
in Children With ASDs: Behavioral Interventions
A wide range of interventions can be classified as behavioral. For this review, we included
studies of early intensive behavioral and developmental interventions, which comprised
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)/Lovaas-based approaches, the Early Start Denver
Model (ESDM), and parent training approaches incorporating principles of Applied Behavior
Analysis (ABA) to improve outcomes among young children with ASDs; social skills
interventions; focal play-based /interaction-based interventions; behavioral interventions focused
on associated behaviors; and a small group of other behavioral interventions assessing other
interventions in core/associated areas (e.g., sleep workshops). Table 9 summarizes critical
aspects of all studies of behavioral interventions, those addressing key question (KQ) 1 as well as
behavioral studies discussed in the KQ2 and KQ7 sections of the report.
29
Articles excluded
n=3,406
Full text articles excluded
n = 531 a
• Participants not within age range
n = 293
• Not original research
n = 135
• Ineligible study size
n = 406
• Irrelevant to key questions
n = 285
• Unable to abstract data
n = 16