Early and intensive behavioral intervention for autism: A survey of clinical practices

Early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) has been demonstrated to be a highly effective treatment for early childhood autism. As EIBI programs have proliferated, they have also begun to mutate and evolve such that between-program differences in specific practices are quite common. Unfortunately, the extent of this procedural variability is unknown. The purpose of the present investigation was to begin documenting the specific practices of EIBI programs. A 43-question Internet survey was distributed to professional supervisors of EIBI programs who provided information regarding their program’s characteristics and practices. A total of 211 program supervisors provided information on a number of practices, including curriculum, program size, therapist expertise and training, supervision, data collection, trial interspersal, consequence delivery, prompt fading, skill maintenance, and problem behavior assessment and treatment. The results indicate considerable variation in a number of EIBI practices. The implications of these findings are discussed.