Study shows early autism intervention for toddlers very effective

It has long been advised that the earlier the better when it comes to beginning treatment for autism. Today however, the first rigorous study of behavior treatment in autistic children as young as 18 months found that two years of therapy can vastly improve symptoms, often resulting in a milder diagnosis.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Health and published online today in Pediatrics. Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, and co-study author Sally Rogers from the University of California-Davis M.I.N.D. Institute devised the trial involving 48 children with autism, which took place at the University of Washington.

Since 2007, pediatricians have been told to screen 18-month-old children for autism. But what the next step is when such a young child is diagnosed has not been clear. This study shows that now we have methods that are effective with this age group. All the children in the trial were between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 years old at the beginning of the study. Half of the children were given community-based interventions or therapies and the other half were enrolled in a 20-hour per week intervention program called “Early Start Denver Model” (ESDM), developed by Rogers.  The goal of this research was to determine how much the debilitating effects of autism can be prevented or reduced. This study shows that by effectively intervening at this young age, it is possible to prevent some of the early problems autism causes. But before it can be recommended on a large scale, the study needs to be replicated and done on a larger group. It is now being expanded to several other sites.