A programmatic description of an early, intensive behavioral intervention program in Australia
Twenty-seven hours of weekly EIBI in a community clinic can drive large one-year gains, especially when kids start young, but teams must prepare maintenance plans so the progress sticks.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McKinnon and her team tracked 154 Australian preschoolers with autism. Each child got 27 hours of one-on-one ABA every week for about a year. The clinic measured IQ, daily-living skills, and how fast the kids mastered new tasks before and after the program.
What they found
Most kids posted big jumps in thinking skills, self-care, and learning speed. The children who started youngest showed the sharpest learning-rate gains. Parents reported the same large improvements at home.
How this fits with other research
Rodgers et al. (2021) pooled 491 kids and saw only small-to-medium IQ and adaptive gains after two years. The Aussie kids look like outliers until you notice Rodgers mixed many doses and models, while McKinnon stuck to one high-dose clinic style.
Kovshoff et al. (2011) warns that one-year EIBI gains can fade within two years if support stops. McKinnon’s cohort has not been followed yet, so the long-term picture is still missing.
de Korte et al. (2021) tracked a similar group for ten years and found the early gains held steady with no new mental-health issues. That longer view gives hope, but it also shows you need a plan to keep services running after the first celebratory year.
Why it matters
If you run an EIBI clinic, this paper is a green light to keep dose high and start intake early. Share the parent-friendly graphs with funders; they show 27 hours can deliver large year-one gains. Build a hand-off plan before graduation so the boost does not leak away.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Review your youngest intakes and raise their weekly hours toward 27 if funding allows.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractThere is currently limited research on early, intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) within Australia. The purpose of this paper was to provide a programmatic description and preliminary findings of an intervention approach which provides a high level of intensity of intervention to preschool aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A total of 154 children with autism participated in the program from 2011 to 2022. At the group level, children who received 27 hr per week of intervention showed significant gains on standardized cognitive and adaptive behavior measures during an average one year of intervention. Further examination of the response to intervention at an individual level demonstrated that 84% of children showed an acceleration in their rate of learning during intervention, with 52% more than doubling their rate of learning in this time. Age was determined to predict improvement in developmental trajectory, but intake cognitive abilities did not. In general, children who commenced intervention at a younger age made substantial improvements in their rate of learning, but children who commenced intervention at an older age made even greater improvements relative to their skills at commencement. The results as well as limitations given the exploratory nature of this paper are discussed, along with implications for addressing the needs of young autistic children in Australia.
Behavioral Interventions, 2024 · doi:10.1002/bin.2060