Randomized-controlled trial examining differing content of ABA therapy delivered to autistic children.

The current study examined relative differences of the content of Applied Behavior Analytic (ABA) Therapy delivered to autistic children. A randomized trial was conducted using 73 school age children who either received a traditional ABA intervention (i.e., treatment as usual, TAU) that emphasized traditional reinforcement contingencies and Skinner's (1957) approach to language development, or a treatment which focused on derived learning and relational framing based on the PEAK curriculum (i.e., relational training, RT; Dixon, 2016). Results suggest that participants who were exposed to the RT gained more skills and had greater improvements in intelligence scores than those participants in the TAU group. Furthermore, indirect measures of positive change including autism severity also appeared to be affected by the group assignment. These data suggest that different types of ABA therapy can produce different degrees of progress for autistic children and have implications for instructional design and service delivery by behavior analysts. • We compared relative differences of ABA therapy content to autistics. • 73 children used in randomized controlled trial. • Relational training produced better outcomes than TAU. • Improvements were shown in intelligence, adaptive behavior, and autism severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]