More About EBP and Autism

Continuing our series from last month on Autism and Evidence-Based Practice...

It is not always as simple as looking at a teaching or intervention method to see if it meets any certain EBP criteria. As the saying goes, if you’ve met one student with autism, you’ve met ONE student with autism. Since each individual student is so different, we need to take that into account. One team of experts stated that we can’t answer the basic question of whether a special education practice is effective or not. We need to take into consideration two things:

1. which type of students does the practice work with, and
2. in which contexts or settings is the practice effective. (Odom, Brantlinger, Gersten, Horner, Thompson, and Harris, 2005)

For all of us who don’t have the time to look through a bunch of research studies, review them for quality, and count the number of high-quality studies on a method, there are other options. Check out the resources linked below to see brief research summaries on a variety of methods.

Association for Science in Autism Treatment: summaries of research on autism.

National Autism Center: provides guides on evidence-based practice for autism.

Professional Development Center on ASD: summaries and fact sheets on evidence-based practices.

References:

Odom, S.L., Brantlinger, E., Gersten, R., Horner, R.H., Thompson, B., & Harris, K.R. (2005). Research in special education: Scientific methods and evidence-based practice. Exceptional Children, 71(2), 137-148.