Joshua Feder, MD, highlights how interest-based, blended, and ABA strategies can all be effective options when working with a child with autism.
Joshua Feder, MD, Editor in Chief, Carlat Child Psychiatry Report and Executive Medical Director, Positive Development, continued his discussion
“If you’ve got a kid who you just know is interested in science, and they want to learn all about that, but you really want to teach them to read, right? So, you are talking about science and the things that have information about science, turns out you’ve got to read them. That’s more of a developmental approach,” he said.
He noted that developmental approaches tend to feel more intuitive and organic to many families. “The developmental approaches are often much more free-flowing, play-based — they follow the way that a lot of people, all of us, learn, ” Feder explained.
However, he stressed that none of the 3 major intervention categories should be considered exclusive to particular levels of support needs.
“The other thing that is really interesting is that for ABA, for the naturalistic approaches, and for the developmental approaches, there’s a lot of confusion about which people are the best match,” Feder said. “You hear people saying about all of these different ones, 'well, that’s for this kind of person, that’s for that kind of person.' That’s not the case for any of these approaches. [For] any of these 3 main approaches... they could be for anybody, any functional level. The real key is what’s a good match for the child and for the family in this particular situation.”
Feder emphasized that AACAP’s updated policy is intended to expand access—not narrow it—and to support a more individualized, evidence-based decision-making process that honors family values, preferences, and children’s strengths.
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