Effectiveness of a Developmental Reciprocity Treatment Program in Autism

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder based on Autism Diagnostic Interview Revised (ADI-R), Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2), DSM-5, and expert clinicalopinion;
• Males and females in good medical health between 2.0 and 5 years 11 months;
• Ability to participate in the testing procedures to the extent that valid standardscores can be obtained;
• Stable treatment (e.g., applied behavior analysis), speech therapy, psychotropicmedication(s) or biomedical intervention(s) for at least 1 month prior to baselinemeasurements with no anticipated changes during study participation;
• Availability of at least one English-speaking parent who can consistently participatein parent training and research measures;
• Clinical Global Impression(CGI) Severity Social Interaction and CommunicationIntegrated Subscale ≥4;
• Meet the cutoff for Autism on the ADOS-2.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Current or lifetime diagnosis of severe psychiatric disorder (e.g., bipolar disorder,etc.);
• A well-established genetic syndrome, such as Fragile X;
• Presence of active medical problem (e.g., unstable seizure disorder or heart disease);
• Child's primary language other than English;
• Previous adequate trial or training of a developmentally based intervention;
• Participants living more than 45 miles from Stanford University;
• Children with more than 20 hours of in-home ABA;
• At least one room of the house must be available to be dedicated to treatment duringsession times;
• There must be no serious health and safety risks present in the home environment;
• The research team has the right to refuse to perform sessions in-home even if thecriteria above are met.