Illustration of a three-step process for identifying the level and quality of empirical support for manualized treatments

Abstract

This article illustrates a three-step process for identifying the level and quality of empirical support available for treatments for persons with communication disorders. This appraisal process is illustrated for a well-established manualized treatment (MT) used to treat children with autism, namely Lovaas and colleagues’ The Me Book (1981). The process involved a series of three steps, each of which is carefully described and illustrated: (a) conducting the search and selection for research articles relevant to the MT, (b) studying the corpus of articles for methodological quality, and (c) classifying the MT for its level of empirical support. The results of this three-step process identified this MT as having adequate empirical support to classify it as effective. The limitation of appraising only published peer-reviewed research was noted with respect to the possibility of publication bias. The process illustrated in this article may be applied to other treatments to improve the evidence-based practices of clinicians who serve individuals with communication disorders.

Keywords:

• Evidence-based practice
• manualized treatment
• autism treatment
• ABA
• speech-language intervention