Comparison of the Effectiveness of Pivotal Response Treatment and Applied Behavioral Analysis on the Symptoms Severity and Executive Functions in Autistic Children

The purpose of this study was to determine the comparison of the effectiveness of pivotal response treatment (PRT) and applied behavioral analysis (ABA) on the severity of symptoms and executive functions in autistic children.

This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design associated with a control group. The statistical population of this study was all children with autism spectrum disorder (5-12 years old) who referred to Tabriz Autism Center in 2019. For the purpose of sampling, 60 autistic children were selected using the available sampling method and randomly divided into 3 groups, the first experimental PRT group (n=20), the second experimental ABA group (n=20), and the control group (n=20). The data were collected using the Garz test and the College Neuropsychological and Personality Questionnaire.

The results showed that PRT and ABA exerted beneficial effects on the severity of symptoms and executive functions, decreased the severity of symptoms, and improved executive functions in children. Furthermore, the results of the post hoc test showed that the training of the PRT method was significantly superior to the ABA method over the severity of symptoms and executive functions.

Attention to these educational methods (PRT and ABA) has an important role in the reduction of symptoms severity and the improvement of executive functions of autistic children.