ABA Treatments in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Trend of scientific publications by Italian Authors from 2002 to 2016

In the last few years, in Italy the appeal of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) treatments is growing. Despite this positive development, there are several limitations. Researches in ABA is limited because there are 1) a widespread psychodynamic tradition, and 2) a lack of familiarity of researchers with the analytical behavioral methodology. Furthermore, training opportunities are only private with costs that are not always accessible. Search for grant for the promotion of ABA would be a strategy to overcome the limits highlighted. It should also be remembered that the impact of the Italian researches in the field of experimental and applied research is not clearly defined. In the aim at helping to filling the gap of the Italian contribution to the scientific literature on intervention for autism, the goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of the Italian researches in the international scientific journals in the last 15 years, by assessing the published article of the Italian authors of ABA interventions. The research has developed by matching in literature several keywords. Then, a further categorization has been applied on different related issues. The results (27 publications) confirm that the Italian contribution to the scientific research on the topics is not very relevant. All authors are employed in Italian institutions, but 8 publications have a collaborator in Germany, one has collaborators in Spain, and three are part of international networks (2 in USA and 1 in Israel). Despite the limited number of articles, the trend is growing and supports positive expectations.