Efficiency of Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder

Overview

Intervention for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in European French-speaking countries is often heterogeneous and poorly evaluated. Six French-speaking early intervention units for children with ASD following the Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) have been created since 2011 with the common aim to evaluate effectiveness and cost-efficiency of the ESDM applied to the European French-speaking public health system. In those units, Children receive ESDM at minimum 12H per week by trained therapist. Therapist work in collaboration with parents (at home) and preschool or nursery. The first aim of the investigators study is to evaluate the effectiveness of ESDM intervention 12 hours per week during 2 years on the global development of children with ASD compared to the interventions commonly available in the community.

This is a multicenter (4 centers in France, 1 center in Switzerland and 1 center in Belgium), randomized, controlled, single blind trial using a modified Zelen design .It concerns children with ASD aged 18 to 36 months without severe neurological or physical disorder and living in the proximity of one the early intervention units. After diagnostic, Children will be included in a longitudinal cohort with the consent of the parents. Sixty children will be drawn lots among 180 children of the cohort and will be included in a ESDM intervention with the consent of the parents. Two groups will be compared: an experimental group of 60 children receiving 12 hours a week of ESDM intervention delivered by trained therapists during 2 years and a control group of 120 children receiving typical heterogeneous 'as-usual' intervention proposed by professionals and public services over the same period. Global developmental profiles of all the children will be measured at different time points over the two years through standardized tests such as the Mullen Scale of Early Learning (MSEL), the ADOS-2 and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale. Cost of each intervention will be calculated. The primary outcome is global development of the child, measured by the developmental quotient with the Mullen after 24 months of intervention.