Early intervention refers to offering autism specific intervention at the earliest age possible. It is about applying a structured approach to the education of children with autism. Children who receive educational intervention before the age of 4 years have shown to significantly improve their chances of learning new skills and adapting to their environment, when compared with children who begin intervention at a later age.
Research indicates that intervention should commence as soon as possible after diagnosis (Clunies-Ross, 1988), that early intervention prevents declines in intellectual development (Guralnick, 1998) and that early intervention leads to improvements in most areas of deficit in autism (Smith, 1999; Birnbauer and Leach, 1993; Jocelyn, Casiro, et al., 1998).
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