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A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparison Between Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and Adult-Driven Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Intervention on Disruptive Behaviors in Public School Children with Autism

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Abstract

Children with autism often demonstrate disruptive behaviors during demanding teaching tasks. Language intervention can be particularly difficult as it involves social and communicative areas, which are challenging for this population. The purpose of this study was to compare two intervention conditions, a naturalistic approach, Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) with an adult-directed ABA approach on disruptive behavior during language intervention in the public schools. A randomized clinical trial design was used with two groups of children, matched according to age, sex and mean length of utterance. The data showed that the children demonstrated significantly lower levels of disruptive behavior during the PRT condition. The results are discussed with respect to antecedent manipulations that may be helpful in reducing disruptive behavior.

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Notes

  1. The assumption of equal variances here is well founded given the randomized nature of the study. However, a t test relaxing this assumption was also performed with no difference in the statistical significance of any of the findings.

  2. We have chosen to report only the results of the paired dependent t test because they are the most easily accessible finding, and because they are consistent with all the other findings. The results of the other analyses are available from the authors by request.

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Acknowledgments

This research and preparation of the manuscript were funded in part by NIH Grant No. DC010924 and generous donations from the Kelly Family Foundation, the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Center for Asperger’s Research, and the Kind World Foundation. The authors would like to express our sincere appreciation to the families that participated in this research and Dr. John Yun for his assistance with the statistical analyses.

Ethical standard

Informed consent was obtained from all participants in this study. Human subjects IRB approval was obtained for the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, Hamadan, Iran

    Fereshteh Mohammadzaheri & Mohammad Rezaei

  2. CCS Psychology, Koegel Autism Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Lynn Kern Koegel

  3. Department of Statistics and Computer, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Enayatolah Bakhshi

Authors
  1. Fereshteh Mohammadzaheri
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  2. Lynn Kern Koegel
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  3. Mohammad Rezaei
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  4. Enayatolah Bakhshi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lynn Kern Koegel.

Additional information

Lynn Kern Koegel is a partner in the private firm Koegel Autism Consultants, LLC.

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Mohammadzaheri, F., Koegel, L.K., Rezaei, M. et al. A Randomized Clinical Trial Comparison Between Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and Adult-Driven Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Intervention on Disruptive Behaviors in Public School Children with Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 45, 2899–2907 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-015-2451-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-015-2451-4

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