Impact of Family-Centered Early Intervention in Infants with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Single-Subject Design.
Ho Il Park, Hae Yean Park, Eunyoung Yoo and 1 others
PMID 32206046WHAT IT FOUND
In three infants with suspected autism spectrum disorder, a family-centered home intervention increased looking and gesturing during free play.
Speech improved in two infants, not the third. With only three infants and no control group, this cannot show the intervention works.
Key findings
01Compared with baseline, all three infants showed more looks and more gestures during free play.
02Produced speech increased in participants 1 and 3, but participant 2 showed no change between baseline and intervention.
03ESI logit scores increased for all three infants, and M-CHAT-R/F post-scores moved from high risk to middle or low risk.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only three infants completed the study, so the findings cannot be generalised. The infants were selected because they had suspected ASD based on M-CHAT-R/F screening, not because a confirmed diagnosis was described. The intervention was delivered as a bundle: home environment modification, play video recording and training, tasks and feedback, related information training, and questions and answers. The contribution of any single component cannot be separated. The study used a single-subject ABA design with no control group, so changes cannot be compared with what would have happened without the programme. The follow-up was only 4 weeks after the second baseline phase, so the paper does not show long-term effects.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that family-centered early intervention reduces autism risk. The infants were only screened as high risk, not confirmed as having ASD, and the study had only three participants, no control group, and home environment modification, play video recording and training, tasks and feedback, related information training, and questions and answers delivered together. The contribution of any single component cannot be separated.