An evaluation of intervention research for transition-age autistic youth

In this systematic evaluation of intervention research for transition-age autistic youth, we examined quality indicators in 193 group and single-case design intervention studies, which tested effects on 1258 outcomes. Behaviorally based interventions were the most common intervention type. We found significant threats to internal validity for the majority of studies, including inadequate randomization, unmasked assessors, and too few data points to infer functional relations. The majority of outcomes were measured in contexts similar to the intervention and were conceptualized as behaviors directly addressed by intervention procedures. As such, they are of unclear long-term utility for autistic people entering adulthood. Adverse events were rarely reported. We suggest several avenues for improving intervention research for this age group. Lay abstract In this study, we assess the quality of intervention research that focuses on autistic youth who are 14-22 years old. We found 193 different studies on this topic, and carefully reviewed them. Most of these studies tested strategies that were behavioral. This means that they used procedures like prompting and rewards to change participants' behavior. We found that the majority of studies had problems that make it hard to determine whether or not the intervention worked. The problems related to how researchers designed their studies, and how they measured the study outcomes. We also found that researchers rarely tried to find out if the strategies they studied had unintended negative effects for participants. Because of these issues, we make suggestions for how researchers might design better studies that will let people know how well the strategies worked.