Abstract
The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is an evidence-based intervention approach that incorporates knowledge from developmental science, behavior analysis, and social-affective neuroscience to support learning and development in young children with autism. This chapter describes an approach for delivering ESDM in a group day care setting—the Group-based Early Start Denver Model, or G-ESDM. The G-ESDM emphasizes the importance of providing intensive teaching grounded on evidence-based educational strategies, individualizing the program, and addressing multiple developmental domains within group-based cooperative learning experiences. The group delivery format has a number of advantages compared to the 1:1 implementation, including feasibility and sustainability in preschool settings and the potential to facilitate peer-mediated learning.
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Notes
- 1.
This notion reflects a significant departure from earlier conceptualizations of learning in autism. Historically, the field has been positing for decades that persons with autism simply could not learn. In the 1960s, this assumption started to be reconsidered thanks to the first studies documenting learning through behavioral techniques. However, at the time and in the following decades, it was believed that learning in autism was possible only through processes that differed from the ones supporting ‘normal learning’. Only recently the idea that learning in autism can be supported through play and social learning during naturalistic interactions like in typical development is being given credit (see Schreibman 1988, and Ashbaugh & Koegel, 2013 for an historical overview).
- 2.
This recommendation refers to actual ratios of between 1:2 and 1:4, not ratios that can occur if every staff member assigned is present. The planned and funded ratio has to be higher in order to assure adequate coverage when staff members are sick, on vacation, at trainings, in meetings, and so on.
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Vivanti, G., Zierhut, C., Dawson, G., Rogers, S.J. (2017). The Group-Based Early Start Denver Model: Origins, Principles, and Strategies. In: Implementing the Group-Based Early Start Denver Model for Preschoolers with Autism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49691-7_2
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