Individualized Autism Intervention for Young Children: Blending Discrete Trial and Naturalistic Strategies

Discrete trial instruction or naturalistic, incidental teaching: How do you choose which approach to use with young children with autism? Now there's no need to "pick a side"―this groundbreaking book helps professionals skillfully blend the best of both behavioral approaches to respond to each child's individual needs.

Developed by one of the nation's leading experts on autism, this innovative, evidence-based guidebook cuts through the chaos of conflicting information and gives readers a logical, child-centered way to plan and implement intervention.

Professionals will begin with an in-depth guide to creating an autism intervention profile. for each child, based on the type and severity of the child's autism characteristics and common predictors of how the child will respond to intervention (such as anxiety level, language, and social interest). Once the profile is complete, readers will learn how to match the child's individual characteristics and needs with a specially tailored blend of DTI and naturalistic teaching.

To help them select and implement the right interventions for each child, professionals will get more than a dozen practical tools, including the Autism Intervention Responsiveness Scale, sample data collection forms, schedules, intervention plans, and progress reports. Readers will also learn from detailed before-and-after case studies of five children with very different characteristics and intervention needs. Through vivid accounts of their diverse intervention plans and first-person stories from their parents, readers will see exactly what individualized, child-centered interventions look like and how they help children make improvements in key areas (see below).

A must for early childhood educators and interventionists, this book will demystify competing autism treatments and help readers create custom-tailored interventions that really improve child outcomes.

Develop child-centered individualized interventions that help children:

• join in play
• read nonverbal cues
• communicate more effectively
• overcome social anxiety
• increase empathy

Travis Thompson, Ph.D., L.P., Graduate Faculty Member, Special Education Program, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and Consulting Psychologist, Minnesota Early Autism Project, 7242 Forestview Lane North, Maple Grove, Minnesota 55369

Dr. Thompson is affiliated with the Autism Certificate Program in the Special Education Program of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, and he is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He is a collaborator on a multisite project on challenging behavior in developmental disabilities including the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Maryland; the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and the University of Kansas, Parsons. He is a licensed psychologist.

Dr. Thompson completed his doctoral training in psychology at the University of Minnesota and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Maryland. He spent a year at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and a year as a visiting scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Rockville, Maryland. Dr. Thompson was Director of the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development at Vanderbilt University and Director of the Institute for Child Development at the University of Kansas Medical Center--a clinical, training, and research institute. Dr. Thompson has served on several National Institutes of Health research review committees, including chairing reviews of the applicants for Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism awards in 2000, 2003, and 2007. He has been a member of American Psychological Association (APA) task forces concerned with the practice of psychology and psychopharmacology. He is a past president of the Behavioral Pharmacology Society, the Division of Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse, and the Division of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities of the APA.

Dr. Thompson has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Research Award, The Arc of the United States; the Academy on Mental Retardation Lifetime Research Award; the APA's Don Hake Award; the Edgar A. Doll Award, for contributions to facilitate the transfer of research into practice; and the Ernest R. Hilgard Award and the Impact of Science on Application Award of the Society for Advancement of Behavior Analysis. He has served as cochair of the Association for Behavior Analysis International's Annual Autism Conference (2010 and 2011). He has published more than 230 journal articles and chapters and 30 books dealing with autism, developmental disabilities, psychopharmacology, and related topics. His most recent books, Making Sense of Autism (2007) and Dr. Thompson's Straight Talk on Autism (2008), are also published by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. Dr. Thompson has spoken in 46 states and 15 countries about his research and clinical services and on topics related to autism and other developmental disabilities and psychopharmacology.

Samuel L. Odom, Ph.D., is the former Director of the Frank Porter Graham (FPG) Child Development Institute where he remains as a Senior Research Scientist. Prior to his work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Odom served in faculty positions at Indiana University and Peabody College/Vanderbilt University. Dr. Odom received a master's degree in special education in 1976 and an educational specialist degree in educational psychology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1979. He earned his doctorate in 1982 in education and human development from the University of Washington.

Throughout his career, Dr. Odom has held positions as a preschool teacher, student teaching supervisor, program coordinator, teacher educator, and researcher. Dr. Odom's research interests include interventions and teaching approaches that promote social competence of young children, effective intervention approaches for children with autism, and early childhood curricula that promote children's school success. He is the author or co-author of over 175 journal articles and book chapters and has edited 10 books on early childhood intervention and developmental disabilities. His current research is addressing treatment efficacy for children and youth with ASD in elementary and high school grades. Also, he is the Co-Director of the National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice at FPG. Dr. Odom is an associate editor for Exceptional Children and is on the editorial board of Journal of Early Intervention, Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. He received the Special Education Outstanding Research Award from the American Educational Research Association Special Education Special Interest Group in 1999, the Merle Karnes Contribution to the Field Award from the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) in 2001, and the Outstanding Special Education Research Award from CEC in 2007. In 2013, he received the Arnold Lucius Gesell Prize awarded for career achievement in research on social inclusion and child development from the Theordor Hellbrugge Foundation in Munich, Germany. In 2016, he received an honorary doctoral degree from Stockholm University. He is currently a visiting professor at Stockholm University and San Diego State University.