Short-term low-intensity Early Start Denver Model program implemented in regional hospitals in Northern Taiwan.
Eight hours of ESDM per week gives a fast but fragile boost; keep some form of support running or the skills will slide.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chiang et al. (2023) tested a lighter version of the Early Start Denver Model. Kids got 8-9 hours a week for six months inside regional hospitals in northern Taiwan.
Doctors compared these toddlers with autism to peers who stayed on the usual wait-list. They tracked language, play, and social skills from start to finish.
What they found
The low-dose ESDM group made medium gains while the wait-list group stayed flat. Skills grew in language, cognition, and social play.
When the six months ended and therapy stopped, the new skills began to slip. Progress faded without ongoing support.
How this fits with other research
Lin et al. (2020) ran the same 8-hour plan first. Their pilot showed similar short-term gains, so the 2023 study adds a control group and confirms the effect is real.
Sinai-Gavrilov et al. (2024) moved the same curriculum into parents' hands. Weekly parent coaching in China also lifted language and social scores, proving the model works with fewer clinic hours if caregivers carry it on.
Vinen et al. (2018) followed Taiwanese kids years later. By school age, early ESDM gave cognitive gains but repetitive behaviors rose, hinting that a six-month dose is not enough for long-term stability.
Why it matters
You can run ESDM at half the classic dose and still see quick wins in a hospital playroom. That is good news for tight budgets and long wait-lists. Just do not stop at six months. Add parent coaching, school follow-up, or booster sessions so the gains stick.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Early Start Denver Model is an evidence-based early intervention program for young and very young children with autism. This interdisciplinary model is used by many types of professionals, such as psychologists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, early child special educators, and paraprofessionals, as well as by parents. Most previous studies on the Early Start Denver Model were conducted in the West, and there are scarce studies on the topics of generalization in culture and countries outside the Western world. In this study, we evaluated the effect of the Early Start Denver Model with some adaptations, including a lower intensity, shorter duration, and delivery in regional general hospitals in Northern Taiwan. In total, 45 young children with autism, aged 2-4 years, were divided into the Early Start Denver Model and community-based control groups. The children in the Early Start Denver Model group received one-on-one intervention for approximately 8-9 h per week for 6 months. The results revealed that compared with the control group, the Early Start Denver Model group showed greater gains in overall development ability and nonverbal development ability from pre- to post-intervention. However, these differences did not sustain at the 6-month follow-up after the completion of the intervention. Being mindful of some caveats in trial designs, this study provides preliminary evidence to support the effectiveness of the Early Start Denver Model intervention in the regional general hospital settings in the context of Han-Chinese-mainly culture. Our findings can provide helpful information to stakeholders and policymakers of early intervention service systems for children with autism in Taiwan, as well as in Asian countries.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221117444