The purpose of this study was to determine the level of evidence for interventions
targeting communication in young children with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum (ASD) under six years of age. Many options are available to families seeking treatment for children with ASD (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2006); some interventions have a higher evidence base than others. In this study, I rated the evidence of intervention articles published between 2008 and 2012 that targeted speech and language outcomes for children under the age of six. An online literature search for articles that met these criteria was completed using the databases Pub Med, Psych Info, and Google Scholar. Thirty-four articles were rated using the Reichow Scale (Reichow et. al. 2007) to determine the level of evidence. Reichow’s scale considers the external scientific evidence. His practice for determining established and promising evidence-based practice (EBP) in this area for interventions requires multiple single subject and group experimental design studies to have been conducted on the intervention. Three interventions met the requirement for promising EBP, and two interventions met the requirement for established EBP. Additionally, many interventions showed strong research evidence. These findings indicate that more research must be conducted on the current interventions before determining whether or not they have high quality evidence and thus should be used clinically.Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Grant 2012No embargoAcademic Major: Speech and Hearing Scienc
