Effects of Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): A Systematic Review
Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Ona, H. N., Larsen, K., et al. (2020).
Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 7(1), 78-90.
This meta-analysis investigates the effects of pivotal response treatment on social-communication, social interaction, and repetitive behaviors in children and adolescents on the autism spectrum.
Not stated
Database inception to August 2017
Randomized controlled trials
5
Although pivotal response treatment demonstrated a large effect size (SMD) on communication skills, the difference was reported to not reach statistical significance (SMD = 1.12; 95% CI -0.49 to 2.73; P = 0.17) in the meta-analysis. Results of the systematic review revealed that PRT may improve social interaction skills in children on the autism spectrum; however, overall certainty of evidence was low and firm conclusions were not drawn.
Due to the differences in interventions and comparison groups among the included studies, only three meta-analyses were conducted to determine the effects of pivotal response treatment (PRT) with two studies in each analysis. Results indicated a significant medium effect size (SMD) for PRT on directly measured expressive language skills (SMD = 0.48), which suggested that PRT can potentially improve expressive language skills in children on the autism spectrum. Firm conclusions, however, were limited due to the low overall certainty of evidence.
