Friday, May 18, 2012
Sheraton Hall (Sheraton Centre Toronto)
9:00 AM
K. O. Blacklock1 and A. Perry2, (1)York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, (2)Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Background: Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) is the most empirically supported form of therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). It is often assumed that IBI is most effective in children who begin treatment very early, e.g., 2 to 3 ½ years. However, the research has been inconsistent, with some studies showing that younger children do better and others finding no relationship between age and outcome. In 2008, Perry et al. conducted a large-scale effectiveness study in the Ontario IBI program, which included retrospective data from 332 children aged 2 to 6 years. Results showed that there were positive but heterogeneous outcomes, and that age was a significant predictor (along with IQ, adaptive level, and autism severity (Perry et al., 2011)). Recently, Blacklock, Perry, and Dunn Geier (2011) did a similar study of 68 children beginning IBI at ages 6 to 13 years. The older children in the Blacklock sample did not fare as well overall. In the younger samples, children made statistically significant improvements on most variables. However, in the older sample, pre-post changes were not significant overall. In the younger sample, children made modest gains on IQ, whereas in the older sample children’s IQs remained relatively stable. In the younger sample, the highest functioning group, adaptively, showed some changes comparable to those in model programs. By contrast, in the older sample, in some cases the lower functioning children improved more.
Objectives: Although the results from Blacklock et al.’s study can be crudely compared to those for the younger children, the two samples may differ in ways which confound this comparison. It is important to examine the differences in IBI outcomes more systematically, using carefully matched pairs. The purpose of the current study is to report a secondary analysis comparing the effectiveness of Ontario’s community-based IBI program for children under the age of 6 years and children age 6 and over.
Methods: Each child from the ‘over 6’ sample will be individually yoke-matched to a child from the Perry et al. (2008) ‘under 6’ sample. The children will be matched primarily based on IQ at entry into treatment (which has been shown to be a strong predictor of outcome). If several children match based on IQ, they may then be further matched on adaptive level. This will result in about 60 well-matched pairs.
Results: Using Repeated Measures ANCOVAs, we will examine whether the younger and older children’s progress in IBI differs on Time 2 measures of cognitive level, adaptive level, and autism severity, controlling for duration between Time 1 and Time 2.
Conclusions: Specific conclusions will be based on the specific results. These conclusions will have important clinical implications for appropriate service selection for older children with autism.
