A Meta-Analysis of Single-Case Research on Applied Behavior Analytic Interventions for People With Down Syndrome
American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Neil, N., Amicarelli, A., et al. (2021).
American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 126(2), 114-141.
This systematic review and meta-analysis investigates the effects of applied behavior analytic interventions on various outcomes in people with Down syndrome. This review will only highlight conclusions about outcomes relevant to the scope of practice of a speech-language pathologist.
Not stated
Database inception up to November 2019
Single-case experimental design studies
meta-analysis = 37 studies
All of the studies included in the meta-analysis focused on communication, and the authors used Tau-U to measure the overall effect size of the intervention. Results indicated that applied behavior analytic interventions had a medium overall effect on communication (Tau-U = 0.89). "An effect of this size and [confidence interval] CI indicates medium effects of the intervention on dependent variable outcomes and may be interpreted as 89% of the intervention phase data are improved above baseline levels (corrected for undesirable trend)" (p. 123).
