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The different flavors of early intervention

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You may have heard terms in early intervention like “NDBI” or “Early Start Denver Model” and wondered if there was a difference in efficacy behind all these flavors of toddler interventions. On this week’s podcast, we speak to Dr. Giacomo Vivanti from @DrexelAutism, who combined data from 4 of these interventions across 700 children to see if they found similar or different effects of each protocol. This group of scientists also examined these interventions on the development of spoken language. The results reinforced: 1. the earlier the better when it comes to early intervention, 2. duration of the intervention matters, and 3. focusing on imitation may be a key to helping toddlers talk.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41264359

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Help for children with minimal language

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About 25-30% of children with autism show language impairment or no language at all, and these families often use assisted communication devices like picture exchange to help their children communicate.  Recently, electronic communication devices like the iPad have revolutionized the way that people communicate, but little research has been done on how and if they are really effective.    This week, a multidisciplinary group of researchers added an assisted communication device, an iPad, to behavioral intervention for a 9 month trial.  As it turns out, the group with all 3 (language intervention, behavioral intervention and the communication device) showed the greatest gains in language and speech, but only when the intervention was intense.  This new study shows that in the right context, these devices can help those who do not communicate with words, and provides preliminary proof that this technology is indeed helpful.