EBPs, Fads & Pseudoscience

What is an EBP?

An Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is a teaching technique with strong empirical, scientific support demonstrating it is effective at reaching a target outcome. The National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice (NCAEP) — successor to the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder (NPDC) — sets the criteria for what counts as an EBP for children with autism (Steinbrenner et al., 2020).

Communities supporting individuals with ASD should use EBPs to make sure target outcomes are reached successfully and efficiently. EBPs also provide a shield against fads and pseudoscientific approaches. The market structures that overdetermine the delivery of interventions demand that ethical professionals select practices that deliver effective treatment in a reasonable timeframe and at reasonable cost — the greatest good for the greatest number.

What is a fad?

Fad treatments lack rigorous scientific evidence for their effectiveness. They tend to become highly popular on the strength of powerful, emotive anecdotal narratives, but fail to achieve lasting success and fade away as unviable. Fads frequently promise miracle cures for individuals with ASD but may end up harming them or indefinitely delaying the attainment of target outcomes. Well-meaning professionals and paraprofessionals often disseminate fads because they lack sufficient training, due to resource trade-offs or conflicts in the scientific community that undermine the generalization of scientific practices.

What is pseudoscience?

Pseudoscientific practices emerge when professionals do not stay current with the latest EBPs in their discipline. They are frequently “supported” by outdated or non-rigorous experimental data that are not easily generalizable or repeatable. The field of ASD has been politicized and monetized as demand for treatment has grown, resulting in market failures in treatment delivery that trade away scientific rigor.

References

This page draws on the standard scholarly treatment of the subject — Foxx and Mulick's Controversial Therapies — and on the NCAEP review that sets the evidence bar for Autism interventions. For parents wanting a practical filter, Kay's “wheat from the chaff” chapter is the single most useful thing to read.

• Foxx, R. M., & Mulick, J. A. (Eds.). (2016). Controversial therapies for autism and intellectual disabilities: Fad, fashion, and science in professional practice (2nd ed.). Routledge. Chapters drawn on: Vyse, Where do fads come from? (pp. 3–16); Newsom & Hovanitz, The nature and value of empirically validated interventions (pp. 17–28); Smith, The appeal of unvalidated treatments (pp. 29–42); Metz, Mulick, & Butter, Autism: A twenty-first century fad magnet (pp. 169–195); Kay, Helping parents separate the wheat from the chaff (pp. 196–208); Zane, Weiss, Davis, & Melton, Evidence-based practices in treatment for autism and intellectual disabilities (pp. 487–497).
• Steinbrenner, J. R., Hume, K., Odom, S. L., Morin, K. L., Nowell, S. W., Tomaszewski, B., Szendrey, S., McIntyre, N. S., Yücesoy-Özkan, S., & Savage, M. N. (2020). Evidence-based practices for children, youth, and young adults with autism. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, National Clearinghouse on Autism Evidence and Practice Review Team.

A fuller piece on burden of proof — the rule underneath all of this — is planned. Until then, the short version: the person selling the treatment owes you the evidence.