LEAP and Autism
Ranking:
Status Research
There are a number of limitations to all of the research studies published to date. For example
- The majority of studies (seven) used single-case designs (such as multiple baseline or withdrawal) and included six or less participants.
- Some of these studies were vague about some of the details of the study. For example, the study by Hoyson, Jamieson, Strain (1984) described the participants as “autistic-like”, making it unclear if they had actually received a formal diagnosis of autism.
- The study by Strain and Bovey (2011) had a number of limitations including the fact that the researchers made no direct observational measures of child behavior; the participants all appeared to be in the moderate to severe range of autism; and the children in the full replication classes were only exposed to a brief period of time during which most components of the intervention were in place.
- The study by Boyd et al (2014) had a number of limitations including that the researchers used raw versus standard scores for some measures; the researchers were reliant on school officials to nominate classrooms/teachers to participate in the study; there were some pre-treatment differences between groups; the assessors were not blind to the children’s group assignment; and the control condition used may represent the ‘‘best’’ of standard practice and may differ substantially from the modal level of quality that reflects ‘‘business-as-usual’’ classroom practices.
- Most of the studies were undertaken by researchers who were not independent of the interventions being studied. Those researchers may therefore have been biased towards the intervention, however unconsciously.
- None of the studies appeared to involve autistic people or their parents and carers in the design, development and evaluation of those studies.
For a comprehensive list of potential flaws in research studies, please see Why some autism research studies are flawed
- Updated
- 16 Jun 2022
- Last Review
- 01 Sep 2017
- Next Review
- 01 Jan 2024