Community-based Agency Delivery of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy: Comparing Outcomes for Children with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Developmental Delays.

Diagnoses came from billing records, and Oregon rules encouraged clinicians to use other billable diagnoses instead of autism, so the autism or developmental delay group may undercount or misclassify children with autism. The study had no untreated or other-treatment comparison, so it cannot show Parent-Child Interaction Therapy caused the behavior improvements. Many families were missing outcome data or had fewer than four sessions and were excluded from behavior analyses, leaving a smaller analytic sample than the original 2,435 families. Outcomes relied on therapist and caregiver reports, which may be biased toward expected or invested change. The autism or developmental delay group was small, especially girls, and no language, intellectual, or autism severity assessment was done, so results may not apply to all children with autism. Over 80% of families did not graduate, so similar graduation rates do not mean most families completed treatment.

Do not conclude that standard Parent-Child Interaction Therapy was proven to work for children with autism or developmental delay compared with no treatment. The study had no untreated or other-treatment comparison, used caregiver and therapist reports only, and the autism or developmental delay group did not reach the target Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory Intensity score of 114 needed for graduation.