Pivotal Response Treatment
Contents
Pivotal Response Treatment
Basic Characteristics
- Description
Pivotal Response Treatment is based upon the idea that a few pivotal behaviors exist which, when changed, will result in large changes in other behaviors as well.2
It is well known that not every type of intervention will work for every child, likely because of the heterogenity in the ASD population. Specific child characteristics and environmental circumstances probably affect treatment outcome.
Profiles
The children who had the best outcome with PRT showed comparatively high levels of toy contact, social approach, and verbal sterotypy, and low levels of social avoidance, and nonverbal stereotypy. Children who did not fit this profile showed few to no gains.3 A follow up study to see if this profile reflects a general profile of children who respond best to any treatment showed that this profile did not predict the responsiveness to Discrete Trial Training, suggesting that this profile is specific to responsiveness to PRT. Researchers also found that children who had a stronger interest in toys responded better to PRT treatment, while low social avoidance did not appear to affect outcome to PRT.4
- Pivotal Response Treatment and Autism Spectrum Disorder
Children with autism have a number of behaviors which require treatment. Studies which identified behaviors unique to each participant to improve upon using Pivotal Response Treatment showed that high-functioning teenagers were able to modify their social communicative behaviors during conversational interactions following training.1
Neuroimaging
Concerns
Interventions
Pivotal Response Training Interventions are naturalistic and individualized. There have been no studies which examined outcomes of PRT vs. outcomes of other interventions such as Joint Attention or Symbolic Play
References
1.Koegel RI et. a. Treatment of social behavior in autism through the modification of pivotal social skills.J Appl Behav Anal. 1993 Fall;26(3):369-77. PMID 8407685
2. Wikipedia:Pivotal Response Treatment
3. Sherer MR et. al. Individual behavioral profiles and predictors of treatment effectiveness for children with autism. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2005 Jun;73(3):525-38. PMID 15982150
4. Schreibman L et al. Brief Report: Toward Refinement of a Predictive Behavioral Profile for Treatment Outcome in Children with Autism. Res Autism Spectr Disord. 2009 Jan;3(1):163-172. PMID 20046210
