DAVINCI - A study to the effectiveness of Pivotal Response Treatment in school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder

DAVINCI - Onderzoek naar het effect van Pivotal Response Treatment bij kinderen en jongeren met een autisme spectrum stoornis

Rationale: Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) is a promising intervention that focuses on the core symptoms of ASD. Research so far is limited due to methodological shortcomings and there is insufficient scientific evidence that supports the use of PRT in school-aged children and adolescents. The current study aims to address these limitations by focussing on the effectiveness of PRT in children and adolescents with ASD aged 9 - 15, applying a randomized controlled trial.


Objective: The main objective of the current study is to investigate the effectiveness of PRT compared to care-as-usual (CAU) in improving child social and communicative skills and child global clinical functioning after treatment and at 2 month follow up. Secondary parameters are feelings of competence in parents, parent-child interaction, child behaviour problems and child adaptive behaviour.
Additionally, a secondary goal is to assess which child, parent and structural intervention factors influencing effectiveness of treatment.


Study design: A randomized controlled trail with partly blinded measures at end-point and follow-up.

Pivotal Response Treamtent (PRT) is more effective compared to care-as-usual in:

-improving child social and communicative skills (primary)

-improving child clinical global functioning (secondary)

-improving feelings of competence in parents (secondary)

The duration of the treatment within this study is 12 weeks, with an extention of 8 weeks when there is no clinical significant improment on the CGI-I after 12 weeks of treatment. When treatment duration is 20 weeks, the 12-week measure will be an intermediate measure.



T1: week 0 (start of treatment)

T2: week 12 (end of treatment/intermediate measure)

T3: week 20 (follow-up/end of treatment)

T4: week 28 (follow-up/follow-up 2)

-Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT): a 12-week intervention for social and communicative skills in children and adolescents with ASD and their caregivers

-care-as-usual: regular treatment of children and adolescents with ASD and their caregivers