2014 International Meeting for Autism Research

May 14 - 17, 2014

The effective treatment of a wide variety of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often requires an individualized (personalized), sequential approach to treatment, whereby treatment is dynamically adapted over time based on the individual’s changing course. Adaptive interventions operationalize this type of individualized, sequential, decision making via a set of decision rules that specify whether, how, for whom, or when to alter the dosage, type or delivery of behavioral or pharmacological strategies in the treatment of autism. Adaptive interventions can be used as a guide for clinical practice. Recently, sequential multiple assignment randomized trials (SMART), a type of study design, were developed explicitly for the purpose of developing and optimizing adaptive interventions. However, adaptive interventions and SMART are new to autism researchers. The overarching aim of this methodology-oriented educational panel is to (a) provide an introduction on the application of adaptive interventions and SMART in autism treatment and research, respectively, and (b) encourage a discussion on how adaptive interventions and SMART can be used to address complex ASDs for which there is wide treatment effect heterogeneity, or for which there is an array of effective treatments, some of which may be costly or burdensome.