Research in Autism: Parent Intervention

自闭症研究：家长干预

• 批准号: 7006615
• 负责人: LAURA E SCHREIBMAN
• 金额: $ 31.96万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1984
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1984-09-01 至 2007-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7006615
• 关键词: autism; behavior test; behavior therapy; behavioral /social science research tag; child psychology; clinical research; communication behavior; early experience; family structure /dynamics; human subject; human therapy evaluation; language development; learning; parent offspring interaction; patient oriented research; preschool child (1-5); teaching; verbal behavior; verbal learning; vision

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is very little known about methods of designing interventions for very young nonverbal children. For example, the literature and our preliminary studies suggest that many nonverbal children may acquire functional communication with an intervention program that is focused entirely on verbal communication. Other children seem to require augmentative communication systems. These augmentative systems may be effective in further producing verbal communication for some nonverbal children, and may remain as the sole effective means of communication for other children who do not acquire expressive verbal communication. The purpose of the proposed research project is to systematically compare two widely used types of intervention programs (see Koegel, 2000, NIH Autism Conference; Lord & McGee, 2001, National Research Council report; Stiebel, 1999). Both approaches are consistent with our general theoretical model in that both target the key pivotal area of motivation to communicate. The primary difference in the approaches is one accomplishes this through a primarily verbal only approach, whereas the other accomplishes this through a primarily visual approach. This difference has been of major interest to the field of autism, but has not been systematically compared in scientific research. While it does not make any difference with respect to our theoretical position as to which condition turns out to be better, it may make a large difference with respect to translation from research to practice, and with respect to understanding autism, which are major NIMH priority areas. In one condition, randomly assigned children will be provided with an intervention using a well-documented manualized intervention focused on verbal expressive communication only (Pivotal Response Training, PRT). In the other condition, randomly assigned children will receive an intervention for the same social communication functions using a well-documented manualized augmentative system of intervention (Picture Exchange Communication System, PECS). Children in the two conditions will be compared for development of verbal and nonverbal communication, changes in disruptive behavior, changes in symptoms of autism, and general adaptive behavior gains. In addition, parent satisfaction and stress measures will be gathered in order to assess the effects of each intervention on family functioning.

描述（由申请人提供）：对于为非常年幼的非语言儿童设计干预措施的方法知之甚少。例如，文献和我们的初步研究表明，许多非语言儿童可以通过完全专注于语言交流的干预计划获得功能性交流。其他孩子似乎需要增强通信系统。这些增强系统可能会有效地为一些非语言儿童进一步产生语言交流，并且可能仍然是其他无法获得表达性语言交流的儿童唯一有效的交流方式。拟议研究项目的目的是系统地比较两种广泛使用的干预计划类型（参见 Koegel，2000 年，NIH 自闭症会议；Lord & McGee，2001 年，国家研究委员会报告；Stiebel，1999）。这两种方法都与我们的一般理论模型一致，因为它们都针对沟通动机的关键领域。这些方法的主要区别在于，一种方法主要通过仅口头方法来实现此目的，而另一种方法主要通过视觉方法来实现此目的。 这种差异引起了自闭症领域的重大兴趣，但尚未在科学研究中进行系统比较。虽然这对我们关于哪种情况更好的理论立场没有任何影响，但它可能会对从研究到实践的转化以及对自闭症的理解产生很大的影响，而这些都是 NIMH 的主要优先事项地区。 在一种情况下，将使用有据可查的手动干预措施为随机分配的儿童提供干预措施，该干预措施仅专注于言语表达沟通（关键反应训练，PRT）。 在另一种情况下，随机分配的儿童将使用有据可查的手动增强干预系统（图片交换通信系统，PECS）接受针对相同社交沟通功能的干预。将比较这两种情况下的儿童的语言和非语言交流的发展、破坏性行为的变化、自闭症症状的变化以及一般适应性行为的增益。此外，还将收集家长满意度和压力测量值，以评估每种干预措施对家庭功能的影响。