The Scottish Centre for autism preschool treatment programme. II: The results of a controlled treatment outcome study.

Salt et al. (2002) ran a centre-based program for preschoolers with autism. Kids got a mix of ABA and developmental play every day for several months.

Staff tracked joint attention, imitation, self-help, motor, and daily living skills. A second group of kids stayed on the wait-list and served as controls.

Treated children gained more skills than the wait-list group across almost every area. Parents also felt a little less stress, though the study only notes a trend.

Adelson et al. (2024) extends these results. They show parents can deliver the same kind of early ABA at home and still get big adaptive-skill jumps.

Wehman et al. (2014) looks like a contradiction at first. They found more speech when therapy happened five times a week, but Jeff et al. saw no clear language boost. The gap fades when you notice Paul worked mostly with Down syndrome, used a different method, and varied dose on purpose.

Lane et al. (1984) is an earlier cousin. Parents taught tiny reading drills during bedtime stories and kids kept the gains at school. It shows parent power, but with far narrower targets.

You now have two solid choices: run a full centre program or train parents to do it at home. Either way, start early and track joint attention, imitation, and daily living. If expressive language is a top goal, add extra speech-rich sessions or boost weekly dose, lessons drawn from Wehman et al. (2014).