Does Treatment Fidelity of the Early Start Denver Model Impact Skill Acquisition in Young Children with Autism? - PubMed (original) (raw)

Does Treatment Fidelity of the Early Start Denver Model Impact Skill Acquisition in Young Children with Autism?

Ashley Zitter et al. J Autism Dev Disord. 2023 Apr.

Abstract

There is increasing evidence supporting the effectiveness of the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) for children on the autism spectrum. However, substantial variability in response to the ESDM has been reported across participants. We examined the plausible yet untested hypothesis that variations in the fidelity level of therapists delivering the intervention contribute to variability in children's response to the ESDM. Videotaped sessions (n = 40) of toddlers on the autism spectrum who received the ESDM from trained therapists were coded to obtain measures of therapist fidelity and children's learning in response to the therapists' instruction. Variations in overall fidelity, along with variations in most items included in the ESDM fidelity checklist, contributed to the children's learning response during the sessions.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Child learning response; Early Start Denver Model; Early intervention; Fidelity; Naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention.

© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest No royalties were received for any of the data presented in the current study. Dr. Robins is a co-owner of the M-CHAT in electronic products and sits on the advisory board of Quadrant Bio-sciences Inc. All other authors have indicated they have no financial relationships or potential conflicts of interests relevant to this article to disclose.

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