The Efficacy of Early Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Daniolou, Sofia; Pandis, Nikolaos; Znoj, Hansjörg (2022). The Efficacy of Early Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of clinical medicine, 11(17) MDPI 10.3390/jcm11175100

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The superiority of early interventions for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) compared to treatment as usual (TAU) has recently been questioned. This study was aimed to investigate the efficacy of early interventions in improving the cognitive ability, language, and adaptive behavior of pre-school children with ASDs through a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). In total, 33 RCTs were included in the meta-analysis using the random effects model. The total sample consisted of 2581 children (age range: 12-132 months). Early interventions led to positive outcomes for cognitive ability (g = 0.32; 95% CI: 0.05, 0.58; p = 0.02), daily living skills (g = 0.35; 95% CI: 0.08, 0.63; p = 0.01), and motor skills (g = 0.39; 95% CI: 0.16, 0.62; p = 0.001), while no positive outcomes were found for the remaining variables. However, when studies without the blinding of outcome assessment were excluded, positive outcomes of early interventions only remained for daily living skills (g = 0.28; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.52; p = 0.02) and motor skills (g = 0.40; 95% CI: 0.11, 0.69; p = 0.007). Although early intervention might not have positive impacts on children with ASDs for several outcomes compared to controls, these results should be interpreted with caution considering the great variability in participant and intervention characteristics.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy
04 Faculty of Medicine > School of Dental Medicine > Department of Orthodontics
04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Haematology, Oncology, Infectious Diseases, Laboratory Medicine and Hospital Pharmacy (DOLS) > Clinic of Radiation Oncology
07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Psychological and Behavioral Health

UniBE Contributor:

Pandis, Nikolaos, Znoj, Hans Jörg

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology

ISSN:

2077-0383

Publisher:

MDPI

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

13 Sep 2022 13:49

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:24

Publisher DOI:

10.3390/jcm11175100

PubMed ID:

36079029

Uncontrolled Keywords:

autism spectrum disorders cognitive ability early interventions language meta-analysis

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/172798

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/172798

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