Beyond Monolithic Packages: Important Strategies Across Early Interventions for Children with Autism

Despite wide variation in theoretical orientation, target outcomes, and the overall implementation procedures used by different early intervention traditions, there are some support strategies that recur across a range of interventions. In this chapter, we review specific strategies that are used in a variety of approaches (suggesting some consensus on their importance and utility) and/or have accrued developmental evidence suggesting that they may be useful for supporting children with ASD. We have identified 10 such strategies including (a) promoting active child engagement, (b) caregiver coaching, (c) the incorporation of intervention strategies into everyday routines, (d) thoughtful environmental arrangements, (e) balancing structure and novelty, (f) developmental sequencing of intervention goals, (g) using data collection to guide intervention decision-making, (h) providing meaningful, natural reinforcement, (i) task analysis to teach functional skills, and (j) fading intervention supports over time.