Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT®) is a naturalistic intervention model derived from Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). PRT targets pivotal areas of child development, including motivation, responsivity to multiple cues, self-management, and social initiations. These skills are pivotal because they allow learners with ASD to make widespread collateral improvements in the domains of communication, socialization, and behavior. PRT increases children's motivation to engage and learn using research-based motivational procedures, such as child choice, task variation, rewarding attempts, and use of direct, natural reinforcers. PRT empowers family members to implement interventions, with learning embedded across daily routines in the natural environment.
When children begin PRT intervention before the age of 5, 85%-90% develop verbal communication as a primary mode of communication. In addition, children with ASD demonstrate increased social initiations and toy play as well as decreased social avoidance and stereotypic language after receiving intervention. Over the past 30 years, over 200 articles on PRT have been published in peer-reviewed journals supporting its effectiveness. PRT is listed by the National Research Council as one of the ten model programs for autism and is one of four scientifically-based practices for ASD intervention in the U.S. (Simpson, 2005).