What types of therapy are available to help children with Autism live more independent lives?

1. What is Autism?

2. What types of therapy and programs are available for children with Autism?

3. Do these programs have any empirical data to support their approach?

4. What are the short and long term results of each program?

My essential question is whether or not there any programs or types of therapy that can help children with autism live more functional and more independent lives. I want to research this topic because I feel like this is a population who needs our help, but I don’t understand what we could do that would be helpful. I observed earlier this summer at a special preschool for Autistic children, and the experience really made me wonder what kind of programs are beneficial for these children.

In order to answer this question, I need to learn more about therapy for children with Autism and
explore the following questions:
1. What is Autism?
2. What types of therapy and programs are available for children with Autism?
3. What is the theory behind these approaches? Do these programs have any empirical data to support their approach?
4. What are the short and long term results of each program?

Knowing these things will help me determine which programs can actually help these children and which programs are inappropriate. It will also help me to understand the way we, as SLPs, can help these children.