Version July 2025
| Model | Description |
| Naturalistic developmental behavioral models | |
| Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) | Integrative program that uses a combination of developmental science and applied behavior analysis (ABA); can include parents/caregivers as therapists. |
| Milieu therapy | Focuses on teaching children new communication skills and behaviors in their natural environments. |
| Pivotal Response Training (PRT) | Uses play and ABA principles to focus on "pivotal" areas of development (eg, motivation, response to cues, self-regulation, initiation of social interactions) instead of one specific behavior to improve socialization, communication, and overall behavior. |
| Natural Environmental Training (NET) | Uses play and ABA principles to teach skills by incorporating teaching into the child's natural environment to reinforce language and social skills. |
| JASPER | Uses behavioral principles embedded into play routines to build joint engagement and regulation skills while improving social communication, language, play, and social skills. |
| Project ImPACT (Improving Parents as Communication Teachers) | Manualized, 24-session curriculum to teach parents/caregivers how to embed routines and strategies that promote social communication, social responsiveness, imitation, play, and behavioral regulation skills into day-to-day routines. |
| Behavioral models | |
| Discrete Trial Training (DTT) | Structured approach that uses intensive ABA-based programming to establish learning readiness and to teach foundational skills such as attention, compliance, imitation, and discrimination learning. |
| Verbal Behavior Approach | Focuses on teaching language and communication skills by applying principles of ABA to teach how words can be used to communicate ideas and to make requests. |
| Relational models | |
| Developmental Individual Difference Relationship-based (DIR), also called Floortime | Focuses on "floor time" play sessions and other strategies to enhance relationships and social interactions to facilitate emotional and cognitive development; seeks to address deficits in auditory processing, language, motor planning and sequencing, sensory modulation, and visual-spatial processing. |
| Relationship-Development Intervention (RDI) | Focuses on activities that elicit interactive behaviors to engage the child in a social relationship; utilizes play-based scenarios that draw out social behaviors and secondarily motivate the child to be more social. |
| Responsive Teaching (RT) | Developmental curriculum implemented by parents/caregivers during routine interactions in the child's natural environment to address cognitive, communication, and social needs. |
