We must improve the low standards underlying "evidence-based practice"

Added on 30/06/2024

Type de contenu

Journal article of the type Editorial ( ; english)

Kristen Bottema-Beutel
We must improve the low standards underlying "evidence-based practice" published in the journal "Autism" n°27, vol.2, 5 pages , doi: 10.1177/13623613221146441

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Summary/Presentation

Evidence-based practice is the process of identifying the best available evidence to make decisions about practices that should be deployed to support individuals in a given population (McKibbon, 1998, see Vivanti, 2022, for a review in relation to autism). Practices that meet a predefined set of evidentiary criteria are labeled “evidencebased practices” (EBPs1), to promote their adoption by service providers. A tenet of EBP is that the research used to designate EBPs should be rigorous, with the fewest risks of bias possible (Slavin, 2008). Several groups have developed EBP frameworks for conveying the extent to which intervention practices designed for autistic people are supported by evidence (e.g. National Autism Center, 2015; Reichow et al., 2008; Smith & Iadarola, 2015; Steinbrenner et al., 2020). These frameworks include algorithms for determining the number and types of studies showing an effect that must be available, and set standards for determining which studies qualify as evidence. The amount and type of evidence that should be required to designate EBPs is controversial, and autism researchers have debated about how standards should be operationalized in EBP frameworks since their initial development (Odom et al., 2005). Critics of autism EBP frameworks have argued that they: do not consider the scope of change indexed by outcome measures so that broad, developmental change and narrow, context-bound change are conflated (Sandbank et al., 2021)2; lead to an overestimation of effectiveness by tallying studies that show effects while ignoring gray literature, studies showing null effects, and studies showing iatrogenic effects (Sandbank et al., 2020; Slavin, 2008); and use taxonomies for categorizing practices that confuse practices and specific components of those practices (Ledford et al., 2021). The aim of this editorial is to point out another limitation of autism EBP frameworks, which is that research quality thresholds are much too low for making determinations about which interventions are likely to be efficacious. Low standards result in practices with questionable efficacy being labeled EBPs and promoted for use, and perpetuate the continued production of lowquality autism intervention research. How have EBP frameworks been used in autism research?

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(3) Authors whose names are followed by an asterisk have publicly disclosed being autistic.

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  • T. Smith, S. Iadarola (2015). "Evidence Base Update for Autism Spectrum Disorder". Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 44(6). doi:10.1080/15374416.2015.1077448

  • A. Sridhar, J. Kuhn, S. Faja, M. Sabatos-DeVito, J. Nikolaeva, G. Dawson, C. Nelson, S. Webb, R. Bernier, S. Jeste, K. Chawarska, C. Sugar, F. Shic, A. Naples, J. Dziura, J. McPartland, t. ABC-CT Consortium (2022). "Patterns of intervention utilization among school-aged children on the autism spectrum: Findings from a multi-site research consortium". Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 94. doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2022.101950

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  • J. Virues-Ortega, F. Julio, R. Pastor-Barriuso (2013). "The TEACCH program for children and adults with autism: A meta-analysis of intervention studies". Clinical Psychology Review, 33(8). doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2013.07.005

  • G. Vivanti (2022). "What does it mean for an autism intervention to be evidence‐based?". Autism Research, 15(10). doi:10.1002/aur.2792

  • C. Wong, S. Odom, K. Hume, A. Cox, A. Fettig, S. Kucharczyk, M. Brock, J. Plavnick, V. Fleury, T. Schultz (2015). "Evidence-Based Practices for Children, Youth, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Comprehensive Review". J Autism Dev Disord, 45(7). doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2351-z

  • G. Xu, L. Strathearn, B. Liu, M. O’Brien, T. Kopelman, J. Zhu, L. Snetselaar, W. Bao (2019). "Prevalence and Treatment Patterns of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States, 2016". JAMA Pediatr, 173(2). doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.4208

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