Pivotal Response Treatment Package for Young Children with Autism

在过去的十年里，在加深我们对 自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的病理生理学，但在识别方面进展有限 有效的干预措施。这项调查的目标是在我们初步调查结果的基础上 进行为期24周的随机对照试点试验，以检查关键反应的有效性 治疗包(PRT-P)对改善自闭症儿童语言表达的作用。Pivotal 反应治疗是一种基于应用原则的自然主义行为干预 行为分析。虽然出现了一些证据表明PRT的有效性，但没有 到目前为止，已经发表了随机、良好对照的试验来检验这种药物的疗效。 对ASD的干预。建议的治疗模式将侧重于向家长传授PRT策略 与家庭治疗相结合24周，并将其与延迟的家庭进行比较 治疗组(DTG)。为了实现这些目标，48名自闭症儿童(年龄范围：2-5.11岁) 有严重沟通障碍的人将被招募参与这项研究，并将进行分层 根据性别。24名儿童将被随机分到PRT-P组和DTG组。这个 PRT-P将由父母培训课程和家庭治疗相结合组成，总共有10个 前12周每周治疗小时，随后3个月每周治疗5小时。 标准化和录像评估将在基线、第6、12和24周进行，并将 由盲人调查员评定。此外，儿童自然语言的全天录音 将使用语言环境分析系统(Lena)对环境进行分析，该系统 涉及数字语言记录和软件分析。最后，社会的关注和单词的学习 眼球追踪任务将用于监测治疗对社交和沟通的效果 赤字。这项研究将表明，自闭症儿童的父母可以学习关键反应 培训程序和他们的孩子将受益于语言技能的提高。此外，我们正在 有兴趣探索对治疗的反应是否会因临床或认知而有所不同 基线因素(主持人)。 1

Over the last decade, considerable progress has been made to increase our understanding of the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but limited progress has been made in identifying effective interventions. The goal of this investigation is to build on our preliminary findings and conduct a randomized controlled 24-week pilot trial to examine the efficacy of a pivotal response treatment package (PRT-P) in improving language expression in young children with ASD. Pivotal response treatment (PRT) is a naturalistic behavioral intervention based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. While some evidence has emerged suggesting the effectiveness of PRT, no randomized well-controlled trials have been published to date examining the efficacy of this intervention in ASD. The proposed treatment model will focus on teaching parents PRT strategies in combination with in-home therapy for 24 weeks and will be compared to families in a delayed treatment group (DTG). To achieve these goals, 48 children with autism (age range: 2-5.11 years) with severe communication deficits will be recruited to participate in this study and will be stratified according to gender. Twenty-four children will be randomized to the PRT-P and 24 to the DTG. The PRT-P will consist of a combination of parent training sessions and in-home therapy for a total of 10 weekly treatment hours for the first 12 weeks, and 5 hours per week for the following 3 months. Standardized and video-taped assessments will be conducted at baseline, week 6, 12, and 24 and will be rated by a blind investigator. In addition, full-day audio recordings of the child's natural language environment will be analyzed using the Language ENvironment Analysis System (LENA), which involves digital language recording and software analysis. Finally, a social attention and word-learning eye tracking task will be used to monitor the effectiveness of treatment on social and communication deficits. This research will show that parents of children with autism can learn pivotal response training procedures and their children will benefit with improved language skills. Additionally, we are interested in exploring whether response to treatment will vary according to any clinical or cognitive factors at baseline (moderators). 1