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...other 24 children were assigned to a control group and referred to a variety of therapists in the greater Seattle area. Although they received less intensive therapy than the intervention group, they still got an average of nine hours a week of one-on-one therapy and another nine hours a week in a specialized preschool or other group setting...
After two years, children in the Denver Model group were way ahead of the control group. Their IQ scores had jumped an average of 17.6 points, to a mean of 78.6, which is just within range of normal intelligence. Much of the gain came in their ability to understand and use language. The control group, by contrast, gained just seven points, remaining in the zone of intellectual disability. Children who received the intervention also improved dramatically in what psychologists call "adaptive behavior" - which includes such everyday behaviors and skills as getting dressed, brushing teeth and participating in family meals. Children...
Also notable, seven out of 24 children in the treatment group improved enough to move out of the autism disorder diagnosis and into a milder part of the autism spectrum (Pervasive Developmental Disability, Not Otherwise Specified). Only one child in the control group...
...methodological rigor that's often been lacking," says psychologist Tony Charman, an autism researcher and professor at the Institute of Education in London, who was not involved in the study. Charman was further impressed with two features of the Early Start Denver Model: it deeply involves parents in their children's treatment - an approach "for which there is good evidence" - and it combines the two kinds of autism therapy for which there is the most research data...
Thus, for example, rather than teaching children to speak by drilling sounds and words, Denver Model therapists begin with what they call "talking bodies" - the nonverbal communication of smiles, gestures and eye contact that normally precedes speech but which toddlers with autism have missed. While therapists use ABA techniques to chart progress toward specific goals, the therapy itself "looks like play," says Rogers, a co-author of the study. "If you saw it, you would say, 'That's what I do with my own baby.' " (Read "For the First Time, a Census of Autistic Adults...