No abstract

The financial implications of the increased prevalence of autism, though rarely discussed, will be extremely important to society. We compared the costs associated with 18 years of special education to the costs associated with the implementation of an average of 3 years of Discrete Trial Training as an Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI) in an effort to minimize the need for special education. Our results indicate that the state of Texas would save $208,500 per child across eighteen years of education with EIBI. When applied to the conservative estimate of 10,000 children with autism in Texas, the State would save a total of $2.09 billion with EIBI. Implications for taxpayers, policymakers, and treatment are discussed.Keywords Autism . Cost . Early intensive behavioral intervention . Special education . Discrete trial trainingThe prevalence of autism is a topic currently receiving a great deal of attention, since evidence indicates an exponential rise in autism over the last decade. It was generally considered stable and rare with a .05% prevalence rate in the population for decades after Lotter (1966) conducted one of the first epidemiological studies of autism, but the DSM-IV-TR (2000) revised the prevalence rate by reporting a range from 2 to 20 per 10,000 people. This range is a reflection of the more recent reports of higher prevalence of autism around the globe, implying an overall increase in autism diagnoses over the years. For example, Bryson, Clark, and Smith (1988) indicated a prevalence of 10 per 10,000 individuals in Canada, and Webb et al. (1997) reported a prevalence of 9.2 per 10,000 in a Welsh district, a change from the 3.3

FOREYT. Quality of life in Mexican-American children following a weight management program. Obesity. 2007;15:2553-2556. Objective: The objective was to evaluate quality of life (QOL) in at-risk-for-overweight and overweight MexicanAmerican children after participating in 6 months of intensive weight management or self-help. Research Methods and Procedures: Eighty sixth-and seventh-grade at-risk-for-overweight (BMI Ն85th to Ͻ95th percentile) and overweight (BMI Ն95th percentile) Mexican-American children were randomly assigned to either intensive instructor-led intervention (ILI) or self-help (SH). The ILI condition included daily participation for 12 weeks in a school-based program comprised of nutrition education, physical activity, and behavior modification, followed by ongoing monthly maintenance. QOL was assessed at baseline and 6 months via child self-report PedsQL. QOL outcomes were compared across treatment groups, and the impact of change in zBMI on change in QOL was evaluated. Results: Children in the ILI condition not only achieved significantly greater weight loss (zBMI, Ϫ0.13 Ϯ 0.14; p Ͻ 0.001) but also significantly greater physical QOL improvements than those in the SH condition at 6 months (p Ͻ 0.05). Furthermore, physical QOL increases were associated with zBMI reduction (p Ͻ 0.05). However, neither psychosocial nor total QOL was significantly impacted by intervention or zBMI change. Discussion: These findings show that even modest decreases in zBMI after weight management result in improved physical QOL in Mexican-American children. These results illustrate the clear need to include evaluation of QOL in the process of identifying effective weight management programs.

The current study examined indices of trauma-related symptom severity as predictors of dropout from exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy in a sample of 99 child and adolescent trauma victims. The investigation incorporated measures of symptom severity at two time points: pretreatment and just before termination. The results indicated that a model with symptom severity measured just before termination was significantly associated with the number of attended sessions; however, a model with the symptom-severity indices measured at pretreatment was nonsignificant. In addition, a significant main effect indicated that increased avoidance behavior measured just before termination was related to fewer treatment sessions. Further analyses also suggested that higher severity of intrusion and depression measured just before termination was correlated with fewer treatment sessions. The results support the idea that more immediate distress may be related to treatment dropout. Implications for the research and practice of exposure therapy for child trauma are discussed.

No abstract