Behavioral Intervention for Autism: A Distinction Between Two Behavior Analytic Approaches‪.‬

Few professionals working with children and families affected by autism spectrum disorders (ASD) would deny that behavioral intervention is the treatment of choice. Programs based in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) methodology such as discrete trial instruction (DTI) and applied verbal behavior (AVB) remain popular interventions for children diagnosed with ASD. They remain popular to the extent that special education litigation has increasingly involved requests that school districts provide or reimburse parents for a program characterized by ABA. Several distinctions, important for school personnel and educational consultants alike, can be made between a these programs. These distinctions are provided along the following dimensions: curriculum, reinforcement and motivation, delivery of instruction, prompting and error correction, language acquisition, augmentative communication, and data collection. Key Words: autism, behavioral intervention, Discrete Trial Instruction, Applied Verbal Behavior.