Did you see this?

The National Institutes of Mental Health announced on December 8th that “Toddlers with Autism Show Improved Social Skills Following Targeted Intervention.”

When I read the title of the announcement for study findings, I had a “Well, duh, NIMH!” moment! But, by the time I finished the announcement, I was actually very happy.

Here’s the thing: the study examined some rather minor – but powerful – adjustments in early interventions programs for children with ASD to target and “encourage children to make frequent and intentional efforts to engage others in communication or play.”

There were 50 children in the study and both groups of children received a classroom-based intervention with trained intervention providers. In both groups, specialized education and in-home parent training was included. The bottom line is that the group of children given more opportunities and supports for improving joint attention, affect sharing and socially engaging imitation, made more progress and seemed to generalize and keep the skills longer than the other group.

Why is this important?

Well, now that there is a randomized controlled trial (*key words when it comes to "evidence-based practices") indicating these findings, our early childhood intervention programs across the country may be more likely to embrace interventions like Interpersonal Synchrony. And, for those of us who are deeply involved with our children’s education, we’ll know to ask for more focus on this aspect of early intervention with toddlers and be able to back up our request with quality research.

So, if you know someone involved with early childhood interventions for children with ASD, or if you know a family with a toddler living with ASD, I strongly encourage you to share this new information with them; let's hope that word spreads quickly and these minor adjustments to program focus will be used to help our littlest children on the spectrum make huge gains!

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Leigh Attaway Wilcox is a writer and editor for the projectLD family of companies. Leigh is Assistant Editor of the internationally acclaimed AutismSpot.com and her work can be found on many of the pLDNetworks sites. Leigh is a guest blogger for the Dallas Morning News on the Dallas Moms Blog and is the author of ALL BETTER: A Touch-and-Heal Book published by Piggy Toes Press in 2007. Leigh lives in North Texas with her husband and young son who loves reading, LEGOs, Mario Bros. and also happens to live with Asperger's Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder.