Pivotal Response Treatment

Programs that offer Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), a naturalistic intervention model for children with autism spectrum disorders that targets pivotal areas of the child"™s development such as motivation, responsiveness to multiple cues, self-management and social initiations in order to achieve collateral improvements in other social, communicative and behavioral areas. The underlying motivational strategies of PRT are incorporated as often as possible and include child choice, task variation, interspersing maintenance tasks, rewarding attempts and the use of direct and natural reinforcers (e.g., giving the child a stuffed animal when the child requests the stuffed animal). PRT is used to teach language; decrease disruptive/self-stimulating behaviors; and increase social, communication and academic skills.