High Functioning Autism: The Relationships among Social Skill Execution, Symptom Expression, and Feelings States

Background: Persons with Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism (AS/HFA) differ considerably in social skills execution, predominant autistic symptoms, and intensity of emotions and other feelings. These individual differences raise questions about the nature of the relationship among social skills, autistic symptoms, and feeling states in this population.

Objectives: To elucidate the interrelationships among social skills execution, symptom expression, and feelings expression and to use this elucidation to inform interventions to improve self-understanding and social functioning.

Methods: Twenty students diagnosed with AS/HFA were studied in autism spectrum-only classrooms. Feelings and social skill were measured on a day-to-day basis by teachers and by students using an electronic diary system (EDS) on handheld computers. Autism symptoms were ascertained from conventional rating scales (GARS, GADS, Conners) completed by the teachers.

Results: Findings indicated that (1) feelings status was highly correlated with social skill execution, both on a group and on an individual basis, (2) feelings status typically influenced social skill more than vice versa, and (3) feelings status modulated the relationship between social skills execution and symptom expression.

Conclusions: These findings imply that social skills intervention programs must incorporate a feelings recognition and management component, particularly when there is a psychiatric co-morbidity. In addition, the pattern of correlations among rating scale symptoms, social skill execution, and feelings level can be used to identify which symptoms present the greater obstacles to more successful social functioning. For example, the correlation pattern obtained suggests that in a classroom setting, symptoms of reduced social reactivity are most indicative of abnormality, and count for more in the evaluation of social skill compromise than do symptoms of reduced social initiation.