The next point we'd like to make is about best practices. The governing health bodies, including federal departments, have historically set the pace in identifying and monitoring best practices and disseminating this information across the country. We have seen this in the recommendation for waiting times in hospital emergency rooms, infection prevention and control practices, and recommended vaccine schedules. The same is needed to be done with ASDs, specifically in the areas of early screening, treatment options, the use of seclusion and restraints, educational communication interventions, transition planning, and successful independent living for adults.
As an example, in 2009 the National Autism Center in the United States released a 68-page document entitled “Findings and Conclusions of the National Standards Project”, in which well over 100 qualified individuals were involved in a report that addressed the need for evidence-based practice guidelines for ASDs.
They use an evidence classification system to rate each treatment. They rated them and gave them four categories: an established treatment, an emerging treatment, unestablished treatment, and ineffective and harmful treatment. An established treatment was one where there were well-controlled studies that showed the intervention produced beneficial effects. They also noted that it wasn't going to be effective for everyone. Then they had emerging treatments, which were ones that had some studies to support them and they were effective but not enough to say they were established. They went on to note that they weren't in a position to rule them out as not effective. Then unestablished was there was little or no evidence in the scientific literature to draw a conclusion. Again they noted there was no reason to assume this treatment was either effective or ineffective. Then, interestingly, they found no treatment had sufficient evidence to be classified as ineffective or harmful.
So it's critical that we work together to facilitate broad and accurate communication of the best practices for autism. A good starting point is to acknowledge what is established and encourage research into the investigation of emerging and unestablished treatments so we can put ourselves in the position to help more people to ensure they can make significant and meaningful progress.