The use of BRIAC for evaluating therapeutic effectiveness.

Forty-six children in eight different psychotherapeutic settings were evaluated at the beginning and at the end of a 12-month period by means of the Behavior Rating Instrument for Autistic Children (BRIAC). The younger children (3 to 6 years of age) were initially more severely disturbed and improved significantly more than the older children (7 to 9 years of age). The large, bleak, custodial residential center produced significantly less improvement in the children than did the other settings. However, among good programs--i.e., those which were sensitive to the behaviors and needs of the children and which were skillfully implemented by a dedicated and attentive staff--there was little evidence of differences in therapeutic effectiveness regardless of whether the therapy was behavior modification, education, psychoanalytically oriented relationship therapy, or activity therapy.