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A systematic review and meta-analysis of comprehensive interventions for pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:There has an increasing number of published trials on psychosocial intervention programmes for pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To achieve better quality of unbiased evidence for the effectiveness of ASD interventions, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive review that covers studies with adequate quality standards, such as randomised controlled trials (RCTs), and different types of intervention In this study, we categorize interventions for ASD as behavioural, social-communication focused, and multimodal developmental based on Howlin's classification of early interventions for children with ASD. The aim of this study was to compare these three models and investigate the strengths and weaknesses of each type of intervention and to identify the approaches that contribute to a successful outcome for children with autism. METHODS:We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis. We included RCTs targeting children with ASD 6 years old or younger. A random effects model was used to present the effect estimate for the outcomes. This study also performed combined meta-analyses of all the three models to investigate the overall effectiveness of the intervention programmes. RESULTS:32 randomized controlled studies were found to be eligible for inclusion. The synthesized data included 594 children from 14 RCTs. There was no statistically significant difference in the effects on autism general symptoms between the social-communication-focused model and the multimodal developmental model (p = 0.83). The results suggest that there is evidence of an effect on 'reciprocity of social interaction towards others' (standard mean difference [95% confidential interval] = 0.53[0.29,0.78], p<0.01) and 'parental synchrony' (SMD = 0.99[0.70,1.29], p<0.01). CONCLUSION:The small number of studies included in the present study limited the ability to make inferences when comparing the three models and investigating the strengths and weaknesses of each type of intervention with respect to important outcomes. Since the outcome of 'reciprocity of social interaction towards others' could be a dependent variable that might be context-bound to interactions with the child's parent, we cannot conclude the interventions for pre-school children with ASD have significant effects on a generalized skill to engage in reciprocal interactions with others. However, the outcomes of 'reciprocity of social interaction towards others' and 'parental synchrony' may be promising targets for interventions involving pre-school children with ASD. TRIAL REGISTRATION:Prospero CRD42011001349.

SUBMITTER: Tachibana Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5718481 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of comprehensive interventions for pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Tachibana Yoshiyuki Y Miyazaki Celine C Ota Erika E Mori Rintaro R Hwang Yeonhee Y Kobayashi Eriko E Terasaka Akiko A Tang Julian J Kamio Yoko Y

PloS one 20171206 12

<h4>Background</h4>There has an increasing number of published trials on psychosocial intervention programmes for pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To achieve better quality of unbiased evidence for the effectiveness of ASD interventions, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive review that covers studies with adequate quality standards, such as randomised controlled trials (RCTs), and different types of intervention In this study, we categorize interventions for ASD as ...[more]

PMID: 29211740

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Project description:There is little evidence regarding the effects of individual and group intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on important outcomes. We performed meta-analyses using a random effects model to investigate the effectiveness of the individual and group intervention studies and to compare the effectiveness of these two types if possible. The main analysis which excluded studies at a high risk of bias (Analysis I) included 14 randomised controlled trials targeting children with ASD≤6 years of age (594 children). The results suggested that both individual and group interventions showed significant effects compared to the control condition on "reciprocity of social interaction towards others" (standard mean difference[SMD] [95%confidence interval{CI}] = 0.59[0.25, 0.93], p = 0.16; 0.45[0.02, 0.88], p = 0.39, respectively). Only individual interventions showed significant effects compared to the control condition on "parental synchrony" (SMD [95%CI] = 0.99 [0.70, 1.29], p<0.01). Our results showed no significant differences between individual and group interventions in effects on "autism general symptoms" (no study available for group intervention), "developmental quotient" (no study available for group intervention), "expressive language" (p = 0.56), "receptive language" (p = 0.29), "reciprocity of social interaction towards others" (p = 0.62), or "adaptive behaviour" (p = 0.43). We also performed sensitivity analyses including studies that had been excluded due to being at a high risk of potential bias (Analysis II). The results suggested that "reciprocity of social interactions towards others" showed significant effects for individual intervention compared to the control condition (0.50[0.31,0.69], p<0.001) but not for group intervention (0.23[-0.33, 0.78], p = 0.42). Individual intervention also showed significant effects on "parental synchrony" (0.98[0.30,1.66], p = 0.005) in the sensitivity analysis. The results also suggested no significant difference on all the outcomes between the individual and group interventions. We also reanalysed the data using cluster-robust standard errors as sensitivity analyses (Analysis III). Analysis III showed no significant effects in the intervention condition compared to the control condition on all the outcomes for both individual and group interventions. When Analysis II was reanalysed using cluster-robust standard errors (Analysis IV), individual interventions showed significant effects compared to the control condition on "reciprocity of social interaction towards others" and "parental synchrony" (mean estimate[95%CI], robust standard error, p = 0.50[0.20, 0.81], 0.13, 0.006; and 1.06[0.08, 2.05], 0.42, 0.04, respectively), and none of the outcomes showed significant effects under the intervention condition compared to the control condition for group interventions. The discrepancies in the results between the main analysis (Analysis I) and the sensitivity analyses (Analyses II, III, and IV) may be due to the small number of included studies. Since the outcome of "reciprocity of social interaction towards others" can be a dependent variable that is usually measured in a context-bound setting with the child's parent, we cannot conclude that individual interventions for pre-school children with ASD have significant effects on generalised skills for engaging in reciprocal interactions with others, even if the interventions have significant effects on the outcome. However, the outcomes of "reciprocity of social interaction towards others" may be promising targets for both individual and group interventions involving pre-school children with ASD. "Parental synchrony" may also be a promising target for individual interventions.Trial registration(CRD42011001349).

Project description:The aims of this study are to (1) conduct a systematic review of the intervention literature in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including types of interventions that are tested and the classification of outcome measures used and (2) to undertake a meta-analysis of the studies, allowing for the first time the comparison of different approaches to intervention using comparative outcomes. There are a number of alternative modalities of intervention for preschool children with ASD in use with different theoretical background and orientation, each of which tend to use different trial designs and outcome measures. There is at this time an urgent need for comprehensive systematic review and meta-analyses of intervention studies for preschool children with ASD, covering studies of adequate quality across different intervention types and measurement methods, with a view to identifying the best current evidence for preschool interventions in the disorder.The authors will perform a systematic review of randomised controlled trials for preschool children with ASD aged 0-6 years, along with a meta-analysis of qualifying studies across intervention modality. The authors will classify the interventions for preschool children with ASD under three models: behaviour, multimodal developmental and communication focused. First, the authors will perform a systematic review. Then, the authors will conduct a meta-analysis by comparing the three models with various outcomes using an inverse variance method in a random effect model. The authors will synthesise each outcome of the studies for the three models using standardised mean differences.This study will identify each intervention's strengths and weaknesses. This study may also suggest what kinds of elements future intervention programmes for children with ASD should have. The authors strongly believe those findings will be able to translated into the clinical practices and patients and their family benefits. Review registration: PROSPERO CRD42011001349.

Project description:Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by deficits in social interaction, restricted interest and repetitive behavior. Oxidative stress in response to environmental exposure plays a role in virtually every human disease and represents a significant avenue of research into the etiology of ASD. The aim of this study was to explore the diagnostic utility of four urinary biomarkers of oxidative stress. Methods: One hundred and thirty-nine (139) children and adolescents with ASD (89% male, average age = 10.0 years, age range = 2.1 to 18.1 years) and 47 healthy children and adolescents (49% male, average age 9.2, age range = 2.5 to 20.8 years) were recruited for this study. Their urinary 8-OH-dG, 8-isoprostane, dityrosine and hexanoil-lisine were determined by using the ELISA method. Urinary creatinine was determined with the kinetic Jaffee reaction and was used to normalize all biochemical measurements. Non-parametric tests and support vector machines (SVM) with three different kernel functions (linear, radial, polynomial) were used to explore and optimize the multivariate prediction of an ASD diagnosis based on the collected biochemical measurements. The SVM models were first trained using data from a random subset of children and adolescents from the ASD group (n = 70, 90% male, average age = 9.7 years, age range = 2.1 to 17.8 years) and the control group (n = 24, 45.8% male, average age = 9.4 years, age range = 2.5 to 20.8 years) using bootstrapping, with additional synthetic minority over-sampling (SMOTE), which was utilized because of unbalanced data. The computed SVM models were then validated using the remaining data from children and adolescents from the ASD (n = 69, 88% male, average age = 10.2 years, age range = 4.3 to 18.1 years) and the control group (n = 23, 52.2% male, average age = 8.9 years, age range = 2.6 to 16.7 years). Results: Using a non-parametric test, we found a trend showing that the urinary 8-OH-dG concentration was lower in children with ASD compared to the control group (unadjusted p = 0.085). When all four biochemical measurements were combined using SVMs with a radial kernel function, we could predict an ASD diagnosis with a balanced accuracy of 73.4%, thereby accounting for an estimated 20.8% of variance (p < 0.001). The predictive accuracy expressed as the area under the curve (AUC) was solid (95% CI = 0.691-0.908). Using the validation data, we achieved significantly lower rates of classification accuracy as expressed by the balanced accuracy (60.1%), the AUC (95% CI = 0.502-0.781) and the percentage of explained variance (R2 = 3.8%). Although the radial SVMs showed less predictive power using the validation data, they do, together with ratings of standardized SVM variable importance, provide some indication that urinary levels of 8-OH-dG and 8-isoprostane are predictive of an ASD diagnosis. Conclusions: Our results indicate that the examined urinary biomarkers in combination may differentiate children with ASD from healthy peers to a significant extent. However, the etiological importance of these findings is difficult to assesses, due to the high-dimensional nature of SVMs and a radial kernel function. Nonetheless, our results show that machine learning methods may provide significant insight into ASD and other disorders that could be related to oxidative stress.

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of comprehensive interventions for pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of comprehensive interventions for pre-school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

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