Systematic Review of Acceptance and Commitment Training Components in the Behavioral Intervention of Individuals with Autism and Developmental Disorders
Suarez hands you a shopping list of ACT components that have, or have not, been tried with autism/DD in single-case studies.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Suarez et al. (2022) hunted down every single-case study that used any piece of Acceptance and Commitment Training with people who have autism or other developmental delays.
They wanted a clear map of which ACT parts have been tested and which parts are still missing.
What they found
The team built a catalog of ACT components tried with autism/DD, but they did not pool outcomes or claim the package works.
Their big message: the evidence is scattered and many ACT pieces have never been tested in this group.
How this fits with other research
Garcia et al. (2022) looked at the same year and also reviewed ACT for neurodevelopmental disorders, but they included group studies and saw mixed results with lots of bias.
Suarez zooms in on single-case designs, so the two reviews sit side-by-side rather than clash—one shows the forest, the other shows each tree.
Gitimoghaddam et al. (2022) scanned 770 ABA papers and found almost no quality-of-life data; Suarez finds a similar gap inside the ACT slice, hinting the whole ABA field still skips life-quality targets.
Hoffmann et al. (2016) argued ACT could fill a private-events gap in ABA; Suarez now shows the gap is still there because most ACT parts have barely been tried.
Why it matters
If you are writing an ACT plan for a client with autism, this review tells you which components already have pilot single-case work and which ones you will be testing for the first time. Share the catalog with your team to pick targets that are still blank on the map, then track your own data to help fill the hole.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a contemporary approach to dealing with unhelpful private events and improving psychological flexibility (Hayes et al., 2006) that is often used in psychotherapy (Szabo, 2019). Nonpsychotherapeutic uses of ACT have been referred to as acceptance and commitment training (ACTraining; Moran, 2011, 2015; Szabo, 2019), which refers to the use of one or more of six processes—present moment attention or mindfulness, values clarification, committed action, self-as-context, defusion, and acceptance (Hayes et al., 2006)—implemented outside of psychotherapeutic settings. There has been a recent increase in interest in ACTraining within the behavior-analytic community, which has led behavior analysts to question whether ACTraining is useful to the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and whether it is within the scope of practice of behavior analysts. Tarbox et al. (2020) proposed that the use of ACTraining is within the scope of practice of behavior analysts and aligns with the seven dimensions of ABA as outlined by Baer et al. (1968). The purpose of the current study was to provide a systematic review of single-case research designs that measure the behavioral effects of ACTraining components conducted with individuals with autism spectrum disorder or developmental disorders, their parents, and their staff, and to inform clinicians and researchers about what variables have been evaluated and what gaps still exist.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40617-021-00567-7