It has recently come to the attention of JCD that the lead author of this study (Houghton) neglected to disclose a prior financial relationship with the Son-Rise program. However, after careful review of the study procedures and the circumstances, and with the full cooperation of Dr. Houghton and Dr. Lewis (who was Dr. Houghton’s PhD advisor at the time), JCD has concluded that there was no conflict of interest on the part of the authors. JCD would like to emphasize that any relationships that might be perceived as a conflict of interest should always be declared by the authors. Dr. Houghton’s amended Disclosure Statement follows:

“Between 2000 and 2009, I was employed by the Options Institute (OI, formerly the Autism Treatment Center). As part of my employment responsibilities, I recruited families for the current study and gathered data on the general social and communicative skills of the children (ADOS) that was available to the therapists within OI. However, the OI had no involvement in the design of the study, the analysis of the data, or in the writing of the article.”