A Quantitative Analysis of Language Interventions for Children With Autism
Behavior Analyst Today
Kane, M., Connell, J. E., et al. (2010).
Behavior Analyst Today, 11(2), 128-144.
This meta-analysis compares the relative effectiveness of contrived (e.g., applied behavior analysis, discrete trial teaching) versus naturalistic interventions (e.g., pivotal response training, enhanced milieu teaching, incidental teaching) for improving spoken language acquisition in children, 2-13 years old, on the autism spectrum.
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Single-subject studies with mulitple baseline, multiple probe, or ABA designs
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"Although contrived approaches scored a higher mean PND [percent nonoverlapping data] for generalization, naturalistic approaches scored a higher mean PND for maintenance effects.... A possibility for stronger maintenance effects for naturalistic programming is that the naturally occurring contingencies used during intervention phases continue to be available within the environment over time" (p. 138).
The meta-analysis reported generalization effects that indicate that children on the autism spectrum generalize "spoken language skills more readily with contrived teaching approaches [PND = 87%], rather than naturalistic approaches [PND = 72%].... One possibility for the unexpected results for generalization effects found in the meta-analysis is that a bias exists in the studies that included measures of generalization for contrived teaching" (p. 137).
"The results for this meta-analysis [of spoken language interventions] reveal that when comparing mean PND [percentage of non-overlapping data] scores, naturalistic interventions [PND = 83%] were more effective than contrived interventions [PND = 64.6%] from baseline to intervention and baseline to follow-up conditions, but less effective when comparing the baseline to generalization conditions" (p. 137).
"The findings suggest that perhaps it would be more effective to devise language interventions utilizing naturalistic teaching approaches for acquisition with a progression to more contrived approaches to train for generalization" (p. 139).
