CART ACE Project IV - Early intervention Study

This intervention is a randomized controlled parent education program that targets children's communication skills. This intervention is for toddlers between 16 and 24 months of age who show signs of communication delays or early signs of autism. The intervention consists of 4 to 12 home based sessions geared towards parent education.

The overarching goal of the proposed project is to rigorously test an intervention program for caregivers and their toddlers with autism that is developmentally informed, child-centered and focused on joint attention, a core deficit in young children with autism. Direct intervention with parents (caregiver-mediated condition) will be compared to educational consultation with parents (caregiver-education condition) for toddlers attending an early intervention program. Thus, contrasting parent involvement conditions will be added on to early intervention services that are the same for all participants. This project tests whether direct intervention with parents and children that focuses on joint attention facilitates greater social-communication outcomes than intervention with parents based only on counseling and education. Both treatments are manualized and equated for contact and intensity. Participants will include 80 toddlers (aged 18 months to 33 months) and their caregivers who will be randomized to one of the two caregiver conditions. Treatment will consist of weekly contact over 10 weeks with follow up assessments 3 and 6 months post intervention. Outcome measures consist of social-communication and language abilities of the children in interaction with their parents, classroom teachers and peers. Since parents play a critical role in their children's development, an effective caregiver intervention with a focus on core deficits may result in better language, and ultimately, better social outcomes for children with autism.