Efficacy of Psychosocial Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Umbrella Review

Molecular Psychiatry

Gosling, C. J., Cartigny, A., et al. (2022).

Molecular Psychiatry, 27, 3647-3656.

This umbrella review of systematic reviews investigates the effect of psychosocial interventions on social communication deficits, global cognitive abilities, adaptive behaviors, and disruptive behaviors in children and adolescents on the autism spectrum. Specific details about the included articles are available elsewhere in the Evidence Maps. See the "Notes on This Article" section below for the citations.

None declared

The data in this umbrella review are included in other documents in the Evidence Maps, some of which can found in the Associated Article section below. For the full list of included studies, please see Table S4 in the <a title="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01670-z#Sec14" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01670-z#Sec14" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supplementary materials</a>.

Not specified

Systematic reviews with meta-analyses

44 studies with 128 resulting meta-analyses

Findings demonstrated that the following psychosocial interventions had a positive overall effect on social communication in preschool children (Class III): <ul> <li>EIBI (early intensive behavioral interventions);</li> <li>NDBI (naturalistic behavioral and developmental interventions);</li> <li>DEV (developmental interventions);</li> <li>PMI (parent-mediated interventions);</li> <li>SSG (social skills group).</li> </ul> PMI showed a statistically significant pooled effect size on disruptive behavior reduction in early school-aged children (Class II), however no other interventions had a significant effect on this behavior. EIBI demonstrated positive effect for expressive and receptive language (Class IV) and adaptive behaviors and intelligence quotient (IQ) measures in children on the autism spectrum(Class III). NDBI demonstrated positive effect for expressive language only (Class IV). All other interventions had no significant impact on language skills and either no significant impact or weak evidence for IQ and adaptive behaviors (Class IV, Class ns). The efficacy of all other interventions on overall characteristics associated with being on the autism spectrum, social communication deficits, and restricted/repetitive behaviors was either weak or non-significant (Class IV, Class ns). Weak evidence or no significant effect was found for technology-mediated interventions (TECH) and Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication-Handicapped Children (TEACCH) approaches.