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Harvard finished the three-day contest with a score of 558 points, following No. 9 Georgia (1,374 points), No. 4 Florida (758 points), and Denver (743 points...
...Denver public-school system, which for more than a year has been utilizing such a growth model, is one of the first districts to adopt school turnaround plans that mimic those favored by the Education Department. On Nov. 30, the city's school board approved measures that would have the district employ each of the four turnaround strategies at various schools across the district. "We can't pretend that modest changes to the status quo are going to deliver significantly different results," says Denver superintendent Tom Boasberg, who has been on the job for a year since replacing former superintendent...
Specifically, the Denver Model uses key elements of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), a rigorous system for shaping behavior by parsing desired behaviors into small, measurable - and teachable - units and using rewards to reinforce them. It also incorporates a more naturalistic, relationship-based approach that draws heavily on decades of research on normal child development. "We follow the sequence of normal development in everything we teach," explains psychologist Sally Rogers of the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis, who developed the Denver Model while at the University of Colorado...
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...
Whether the Early Start Denver Model will prove to be more effective than other therapies remains to be seen. Leading autism researcher Tristram Smith, an ABA expert at the University of Rochester, who lauds the new study for its methodological rigor, notes that the gains made by children in the intervention group were similar to those reported in studies of ABA models. "I do think there is a need for head-to-head studies," says Smith. Also needed is high-quality research on how to match individual children with the therapy that suits them best...