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Challenges in Evaluating Psychosocial Interventions for Autistic Spectrum Disorders

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In 2002, the National Institutes of Health sponsored a meeting concerning methodological challenges of research in psychosocial interventions in Autism Spectrum Disorders. This paper provides a summary of the presentations and the discussions that occurred during this meeting. Recommendations to federal and private agencies included the need for randomized clinical trials of comprehensive interventions for autism as the highest, but not the sole priority. Ongoing working groups were proposed to address psychosocial interventions with a focus on relevant statistics, standardized documentation and methods of diagnosis, development of outcome measures, establishment of standards in research; and the need for innovative treatment designs, including application of designs from other research areas to the study of interventions in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

The meeting during which this manuscript was initiated was sponsored by National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the NIH Office of Rare Diseases.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institutes of Health, or any other part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, USA

    Catherine Lord

  2. Child & Adolescent Psychosocial Intervention Program – NIMH, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Ann Wagner

  3. University of California – Davis, Tulare, USA

    Sally Rogers

  4. McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

    Peter Szatmari

  5. Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

    Michael Aman

  6. Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK

    Tony Charman

  7. University of Washington, Seattle, USA

    Geraldine Dawson

  8. University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, USA

    V. Mark Durand

  9. Autism Society of America, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Lee Grossman

  10. University of California, Los Angeles, USA

    Donald Guthrie

  11. University of New Jersey Rutgers, New Brunswick, USA

    Sandra Harris

  12. University of California, Los Angeles, USA

    Connie Kasari

  13. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

    Lee Marcus

  14. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor , USA

    Susan Murphy

  15. Indiana University, Indianapolis , USA

    Samuel Odom

  16. University of Manchester, Manchester , UK

    Andrew Pickles

  17. Yale University, New Haven , USA

    Lawrence Scahill

  18. NECTAS, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill , USA

    Evelyn Shaw

  19. University of California, San Francisco , USA

    Bryna Siegel

  20. University of California, Los Angeles , USA

    Marian Sigman

  21. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

    Wendy Stone

  22. University of Rochester, Rochester, USA

    Tristram Smith

  23. Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA

    Paul Yoder

  24. University of Michigan, Austim and Communication Disorders Center, 1111, East Catherine Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

    Catherine Lord

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  1. Catherine Lord
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  2. Ann Wagner
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  3. Sally Rogers
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  4. Peter Szatmari
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  5. Michael Aman
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  6. Tony Charman
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  7. Geraldine Dawson
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  9. Lee Grossman
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  10. Donald Guthrie
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  11. Sandra Harris
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  12. Connie Kasari
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  13. Lee Marcus
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  14. Susan Murphy
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  15. Samuel Odom
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  16. Andrew Pickles
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  17. Lawrence Scahill
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  18. Evelyn Shaw
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  19. Bryna Siegel
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  20. Marian Sigman
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  21. Wendy Stone
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  22. Tristram Smith
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  23. Paul Yoder
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Correspondence to Catherine Lord.

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Lord, C., Wagner, A., Rogers, S. et al. Challenges in Evaluating Psychosocial Interventions for Autistic Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 35, 695–708 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-005-0017-6

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