Additional Treatment Parameters and Issues Requiring Study: Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI)

Abstract

Research has shown that early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) may produce clinically meaningful gains in language, social, and cognitive functioning and reduce aberrant behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Yet, there is a considerable variation in outcome made by individual children. The purpose of this chapter is to identify and discuss such variables. More specifically, variables addressed are predictors of individual differences in EIBI outcome, ways to optimize the delivery of the intervention, ways to improving effectiveness of the treatment, whether improvements are durable over time, how EIBI compares with alterative behavioral approaches, whether the model has been successfully adapted to different settings and populations, whether autism can be understood based on reinforcement principles, and finally, the relationship between behavioral changes and collateral changes in neurobiological functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)