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Beyond Monolithic Packages: Important Strategies Across Early Interventions for Children with Autism

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Clinical Guide to Early Interventions for Children with Autism

Abstract

Despite wide variation in theoretical orientation, target outcomes, and the overall implementation procedures used by different early intervention traditions, there are some support strategies that recur across a range of interventions. In this chapter, we review specific strategies that are used in a variety of approaches (suggesting some consensus on their importance and utility) and/or have accrued developmental evidence suggesting that they may be useful for supporting children with ASD. We have identified 10 such strategies including (a) promoting active child engagement, (b) caregiver coaching, (c) the incorporation of intervention strategies into everyday routines, (d) thoughtful environmental arrangements, (e) balancing structure and novelty, (f) developmental sequencing of intervention goals, (g) using data collection to guide intervention decision-making, (h) providing meaningful, natural reinforcement, (i) task analysis to teach functional skills, and (j) fading intervention supports over time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

    Kristen Bottema-Beutel & Shannon Crowley

Authors
  1. Kristen Bottema-Beutel
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  2. Shannon Crowley
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Correspondence to Kristen Bottema-Beutel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. AJ Drexel Autism Institute, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Giacomo Vivanti

  2. Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

    Kristen Bottema-Beutel

  3. UNC TEACCH Autism Program, The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Lauren Turner-Brown

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Bottema-Beutel, K., Crowley, S. (2020). Beyond Monolithic Packages: Important Strategies Across Early Interventions for Children with Autism. In: Vivanti, G., Bottema-Beutel, K., Turner-Brown, L. (eds) Clinical Guide to Early Interventions for Children with Autism. Best Practices in Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41160-2_9

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