Efficacy of home-based short term structured teaching on the outcome of autistic children

[Objectives] To improve the developmental outcome of autistic children, a home-based structured teaching (ST) programme was carried out. This ST programme was a Chinese revision of TEACCH introduced by HeepKong Society of Hongkong. [Methods] 60 children were enrolled,30 of them received 6 months training. The other 30 autistic children were designed as control group. In ST group, the children were firstly assessed and the training plan was made. Then the parents were trained to carry out the plan in the home according to the requirement of TEACCH. The strategy used included visual structure, routine, environment arrangement, schedule and individualized working system. The parents were asked to train their children 6 hours a day, 7 days a week. After six months, both group were re-assessed by using Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC). [Results] For ST group, the ATEC total score was significantly decreased from 76. 2 to 54. 9 (P0. 01). ATEC subscale scores of ST group were decreased from 17. 0 to 12. 7(language), 16. 7 to 10. 1(social ability), 20. 8 to 14. 4(sensory), 21. 8 to 16. 4(behavior), respectively (P0. 05). Compared with the control group, the children in ST group were significantly improved in behavior, sensory perception, social interaction, language and total performance. [Conclusion] TEACCH is an effective programme to improve the developmental outcome of Chinese autistic children.