Allegiance and knowledge levels of professionals working with early intensive behavioural intervention in autism

The purpose of this study is to examine various informants' knowledge about and allegiance towards EIBI, Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention; a method of working with children's behaviour and skills aimed at children with autism spectrum disorder. The study focuses on five different groups of informants: supervised preschool staff conducting EIBI, unsupervised preschool staff not conducting EIBI, behaviour modification experts, school staff and parents of children with autism spectrum disorder.

The results show that supervised preschool staff conducting EIBI have more formal knowledge about EIBI than preschool staff not conducting an EIBI programme. However, the results show no differences in allegiance towards the EIBI concept. According to the authors, this indicates that supervision improves the staff's level of knowledge, but not their allegiance in any significant way. The study also shows that supervised preschool staff conducting EIBI have less knowledge and show a lower degree of allegiance towards EIBI compared with behaviour modification experts. According to the authors, the results for the preschool staff's EIBI knowledge generally indicate that knowledge about the basic ABA principles (Applied Behaviour Analysis) used in EIBI is not common among preschool staff.

A total of 294 informants took part in the study, 33 of whom were supervised preschool staff members conducting EIBI, 26 were unsupervised preschool staff members not conducting EIBI, 60 were behaviour modification experts, 25 were school staff and 150 were parents of children with autism spectrum disorder. The empirical material consists of questionnaire responses that were analysed statistically.

Långh, U., Hammar, M., Klintwall, L., & Bölte, S. (2017). Allegiance and knowledge levels of professionals working with early intensive behavioural intervention in autism. Early Intervention in Psychiatry, 11(5), 444-450.