Evidence-Based Practice and Why You Should Look for the Interventions Supported by It

Evidence-based practice or it’s abbreviation EBP is used a lot when talking about appropriate interventions for autistic children. This usually comes up as an integral part of selecting an intervention, but what is it and why should you care?

Evidence-based means that there are data from a range of resources (described in more detail below) that helps to identify and evaluate services that have positive outcomes for children and their families. These generally include research papers to support various interventions, particularly if they show good outcomes, such as increased skills (like communication, social skills, or learning), reduced parental stress, etc. Data can also show that there is no or little effect for interventions, which is important to know too!

Now, when we say evidence, what does that mean? Data can mean one or a few of the following:

- Research studies: like single-case studies (where there is one person receiving an intervention) or large randomised controlled studies (this is the gold-star of research because it removes most of the bias by having a large sample size and the researcher and person being studied do not know which intervention they are giving/receiving)

- Knowledge from professional experts

- Data from children and their families

All of the above can be used to formulate what makes an intervention successful or what may require a bit more research. The data from each can inform a current intervention, may adapt an intervention or may create a new intervention to try out. What’s important is that the information from all the evidence informs the research.

In the autism world there can be all kinds of claims made about interventions, but using EBP can help you focus on intervention(s) that are likely to help your child. Now, I certainly will not tell you not to use an intervention that you’d like to try if it has no evidence base. You are your child’s parent and advocate! Whatever you want to try, I completely back your decision! What I can say is that evidence-based practice is likely to help your child because as we’ve described above, the data back it to support your child and enhance their skills.

On top of research papers about specific interventions, there are people that have collated the data to show which interventions are considered effective, how effective they seem to be and how many actual research papers there are on a particular intervention. These are great to review to establish what treatment is useful right now in terms of the science behind it and how effective it may be. A recent synthesis for Autism specific interventions was conducted by Autism CRC to help guide parents and practitioners for interventions. For the full report or the summary (this is definitely easier to understand!), give us a shout at admin@kindredkids.com.au so we can send either through.

We hope you find an effective intervention for your child! If you have research for different interventions, please send through your recommendations by commenting below!