Follow-Up of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder 1 Year After Early Behavioral Intervention.
Low-intensity EIBI gives lasting IQ gains, yet autism symptoms rebound without ongoing support.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Mélina and her team tracked the preschoolers with autism one year after they finished low-intensity early intensive behavioral intervention.
Kids had received 10–20 hours per week of one-to-one ABA in a public clinic.
The researchers re-tested IQ, autism symptoms, and daily living skills to see what stayed, what faded, and what vanished.
What they found
IQ gains held steady—children still scored about 12 points higher than before treatment.
Autism symptoms crept back to where they started once therapy stopped.
Adaptive behavior scores did not budge; parents saw no new dressing, toileting, or feeding skills.
How this fits with other research
Stewart et al. (2018) pooled 19 parent-coaching studies and found tiny but real gains across every domain.
Their meta-analysis includes low-hour programs like this one, so the stable IQ fits their average—autism rebound and all.
Cox et al. (2015) followed anxious autistic youth after CBT and also saw partial symptom return.
Both papers warn the same thing: stop active treatment and old behaviors come back, no matter the target skill.
Why it matters
You can tell funders that even 10–20 hours can protect cognitive growth, but only if you keep something running afterward.
Build a hand-off plan—parent coaching, school consultation, or brief booster sessions—so autism symptoms don’t erase the progress you just spent a year making.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The effectiveness of early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has been demonstrated by many studies and meta-analyses. Although it is considered an exemplary practice in several countries, few studies have investigated the maintenance of gains made in EIBI over time. Thirty-two children were assessed at posttreatment and 1-year follow-up after they attended a low-to-moderate-intensity (10 to 20 hr per week) EIBI program delivered by a public rehabilitation center. Between baseline and posttreatment, children showed significant gains in most areas of intellectual functioning and a significant decrease of autism symptom severity, but no change in adaptive behavior. Gains in intellectual functioning were maintained over a 1-year period after treatment termination, but autism symptom severity had increased to approximately pretreatment levels during that interval. Considerable individual variability was noted in the evolution of outcomes.
Behavior modification, 2019 · doi:10.1177/0145445518773692