Understanding the Effects of Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions: A Project AIM Meta-Analysis
Autism Research
Crank, J. E., Sandbank, M., et al. (2021).
Autism Research, 14(4), 817-834.
This systematic review and meta-analysis investigates the effects of naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions on a variety of outcomes (e.g., social communication, language, play, cognition, social-emotional skills, adaptive behavior) in children, from birth to 8 years old, on the autism spectrum.
Not stated
1970 to 2018
Group designs that included both an intervention and a control group
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Naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions demonstrate the greatest effects on context-bound outcomes (i.e., outcomes measured in a context identical to the context of the intervention) and proximal outcomes (i.e., outcomes directly taught, modeled, or prompted in the intervention) in young children on the autism spectrum. "Effect sizes did not significantly vary as a function of the cumulative intensity of intervention in hours (<em>B</em>=0.09, <em>P</em>=0.563), or by the type of interventionist that implemented the intervention (clinician <em>B</em>=0.12, <em>P</em>=0.539; combination <em>B</em>=−0.26, <em>P</em>=0.215; educator <em>B</em>=0.01, <em>P</em>=0.931; reference category=caregiver)" (p. 825).
Outcomes that were considered proximal to the intervention (Hedge's g = 0.42; 95% CI [0.26, 0.58]) were significantly larger than those coded as distal (g = 0.17; 95% CI [0.04, 0.31]). Significant treatment effects were noted for context-bound outcomes (g = 0.47;95% CI [0.28, 0.65]) but not for potentially context-bound or generalized outcomes.
