Educating Children with Autism (2001) / Chapter Skim
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15 Methodological Issues in Research on Educational Interventions
15 Methodological Issues in Research on Educational Interventions
Pages 193-210
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From page 193... ...
A primary goal of early intervention research is to determine the types of practices that are most effective for children with specific characteristics (Guralnick, 1997~. If young children with autistic spectrum disorders were homogeneous in intelligence, behavior, and family circumstances, and if researchers and educators could apply a uniform amount of treatment in nearly identical settings and life circumstances, then a standard, randomizedgroup, clinical-trial research design could be employed to provide unequivocal answers to questions about treatments and outcomes.
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From page 194... ...
A third body of literature has examined the effects of comprehensive treatment programs on the immediate and long-term outcomes for young children with autistic spectrum disorders and their families (e.g., Harris et al., 1991; McEachin et al., 1993; Rogers and DiLalla, 1991; Strain and Hoyson, 2000~. A fourth body of research has addressed individual instructional or intervention approaches that focus on specific aspects of a child's behavior, such as social skills (McConnell, 1999)
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From page 195... ...
Integration of the collective body of knowledge represented in these four literatures is important and could inform practice. It would be productive for leaders from these four research traditions to communicate regularly around the common issue of educational interventions for young children with autistic spectrum disorders.
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From page 196... ...
It involves determining how specifically the features of autistic spectrum disorders can be defined in toddlers and contrasting the benefits of this approach with more general identification of risk status. Research in diagnosis is at a quite different stage.
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From page 197... ...
DESCRIPTION OF PARTICIPANTS IN STUDIES To interpret the results of early intervention research and to conduct some of the sophisticated analyses described below, it is important to understand the characteristics of the participants in the studies. As mentioned above, heterogeneity in child characteristics is nearly as much a defining feature of autistic spectrum disorders as are the DSM-IV criteria.
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From page 198... ...
In many studies of children with autistic spectrum disorders, descrip
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From page 199... ...
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES To examine effectiveness of comprehensive early intervention programs and individual intervention practices for children with autistic spectrum disorders, standards must be established for determining the causal relationship between the treatment procedures and the identified outcomes. The various experimental methodologies employed reflect the different literatures noted earlier.
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From page 200... ...
. For programs providing treatment to young children with autistic spectrum disorders and their families, random assignment is often a difficult procedure.
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From page 201... ...
Because the number of children with autistic spectrum disorders enrolled in particular treatment programs often is not large, sample size and within-group variability are challenges to the use of randomized clinical control methodology for determining the effectiveness of educational interventions for those children. Single-Subject Designs In contrast to group experimental designs, single-subject design methodology uses a smaller number of subjects and establishes the causal relationship between treatment and outcomes by a series of intrasubject or intersubject replications of treatment effects (Kazdin, 1982~.
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From page 202... ...
Third, unlike group designs, in which the treatments often represent a range of theoretical perspectives, treatments evaluated through single-subject designs tend to follow an applied behavior analysis theoretical orientation (Kazdin, 1982~. There are methodological problems and limitations when single-subject designs are applied to studying children with autistic spectrum disorders.
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From page 203... ...
Some measurement of generalization and/or maintenance was addressed in an additional 10 to 40 percent of studies, with the greatest frequency in positive behavioral and communication interventions, but there is still much room for improvement. For research on early interventions for young children with autistic spectrum disorders, assessment of generalization and maintenance should be a standard feature of single-subject and group design studies.
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From page 204... ...
Research on comprehensive intervention programs and individual intervention approaches tends to be conducted and replicated by individuals who developed the approaches. Evidence for the effectiveness of these approaches is strengthened when researchers who are independent of the developers replicate findings of effectiveness.
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From page 205... ...
This type of aptitude-by-treatment-interaction analysis has the potential for providing valuable information about the characteristics of children with autistic spectrum disorders that are associated with outcomes
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From page 206... ...
For example, in one study, children diagnosed as having autism or pervasive developmental disorder were randomly assigned to an intensive intervention program based upon the UCLA Young Autism Project model or a parent training model. Although it appeared that children with pervasive developmental disorder scored consistently higher than children with autism on some measures, there were no significant differences between groups (Smith et al., 2000~.
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From page 207... ...
These techniques may also be used to examine patterns of growth for children with different types of characteristics or children involved in different types of treatment conditions or programs (e.g., Burchinal, 1999; Burchinal, Bailey and Synder, 1994; Hatton et al., 1997~. Natural history studies of development in children with autistic spectrum disorders are critical using these methods to provide both theoretically based insight and empirical "baselines." The advantage of growth curve analysis and related regression models is that they allow researchers to control for nested variables (e.g., children participating in the same intervention but in different class
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From page 208... ...
Group Size and Experimental Group Design A clear problem mentioned at several points in the preceding discussion is that methodological tools available to researchers, such as studies of individual differences in response to treatments and sophisticated regression-based techniques, such as hierarchical linear regression modeling, are limited by the number of children with autistic spectrum disorders in intervention programs and the number of data points collected. Implementing an early intervention program for children and families is a labor-intensive and expensive endeavor.
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From page 209... ...
Qualitative and ethnographic research does hold promise for uncovering important features in educational interventions programs that affect the development of young children with autistic spectrum disorders and their families. FROM RESEARCH TO PRACTICE There is an active research literature on the developmental characteristics, diagnostic criteria, comprehensive treatment programs, and individual intervention strategies for young children with autistic spectrum disorders.
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From page 210... ...
Addressing these methodological issues will require larger sample sizes, longitudinal follow-ups of participants, and interdisciplinary collaboration. To enable such needed research, initiatives should be funded jointly by federal agencies responsible for research, development, and services for young children with autistic spectrum disorders (including the Office of Special Education Programs, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders)
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