Effectiveness of Pivotal Response Treatment on Future Thinking and PASS Processes in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Recent research in this area has focused on cognitive deficits such as future thinking and PASS processes (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive) in this group of individuals, in addition to diagnostic symptoms. It seems these deficits can explain the behavioral symptoms of the disorder. Therefore, present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of pivotal response treatment on future thinking and PASS processes of children with autism spectrum disorder.

Methods and Materials: 

The research design was quasi-experimental with pretest, posttest and follow up with control group. The study population included all children 8-6 years old with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder in Isfahan. The sample included 20 students with high-functioning autism selected through convenience sampling and divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group participated in a 20- session’s intervention, 2 sessions per week. The Cognitive Assessment System (CAS), trip task, Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) were used for data collection. Two months after the end of the intervention, both groups were followed up using CAS and trip task.

The scores of Future thinking and cognitive processes (planning) were significantly improved in the experimental group, compared to the control group.

This study shows promising results for pivotal response treatment as an intervention for improving cognitive components in children with autism spectrum disorder and suggest that cognitive components are malleable through implementation of pivotal response treatment.