[Source: UNC School of Medicine]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that autism is becoming more common in young children. In an effort to improve the challenges young autistic children face as part of their early development, researchers have focused on developing and evaluating nonpharmaceutical interventions that can be provided in early childhood.

Micheal Sandbank, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the UNC School of Medicine, is an expert on the research supporting these early interventions, which informs clinical practice across the United States. A new comprehensive meta-analysis, led by Sandbank, shows that many low-quality studies dominate the field, and ultimately dictate intervention recommendations and patient outcomes. The results were published in the British Medical Journal.

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