Although there is no definitive cure for ASD, early detection and intervention enables a child to learn to be more social and communicative and function more independently (Sigman et al., 2004).

Some interventions that can be used at home effectively are Floor Time and Pivotal Response Technique (PRT).  Floor Time was developed by Dr. Stanley Greenspan and involves interacting with the child on their terms.  Pivotal Response is also child led, but increases the interactions between child and caregiver by prompting a response every 10 seconds.  Both techniques have promise and are easily used at home.

Summary of Floor Time

Caregiver joins the child in the activity that the child has chosen.  If the child is lining up cars, the caregiver lines up cars as well.  During the activity, the caregiver encourages closing “circles of communication.”  A circle of communication is closed when there is a initiation of communication and a response.  For instance, the care giver holds a desired car in front of the child, the child reaches for and takes the car.  A more advanced circle of communication could be a caregiver asking, “Where is the blue car?” and the child responding, “Right here.”  The goal of Floor Time it to increase the number of circles of communication that are closed as well as increase the number of circles that are initiated by the child.

For more information on Floor Time:

http://www.users.qwest.net/~tbharris/prt.htm

http://www.neurodiversity.com/greenspan.html

Summary of PRT

In PRT the caregiver offers the child a choice of activities and then allows the child to play as they wish for approximately 10 seconds then blocks the child from completing the activity and prompts them to respond verbally so they can continue the activity.  For instance, the child is spinning the wheel of a car, after 10 seconds the caregiver places their hand on the wheel, stopping it and says, “spin.”  The caregiver doesn’t remove their hand and allow the spinning to continue until the child verbalized appropriately.  For a nonverbal child, any speech sound made within 10 second of the prompt is acceptable.  For a child that babbles frequently, making an approximation of the word is acceptable (“sss”  “pi”  “in” “pin”  “sp”  etc.).  The caregiver expects the child to make the most sophisticated request they are able to make all the way up to complete sentences (“I want to spin the wheel, please.)PRT can also be utilized at snack time with the caregiver giving a small amount of desired snack when the child requests as well as they are able to.

PRT has been research validated to increase expressive language in students with ASD.

For more information on PRT :

http://www.education.ucsb.edu/autism/prtbook.html

http://www.users.qwest.net/~tbharris/prt.htm

http://www.starautismprogram.com/