Modification of An Emotion-Based Social Skills Training Program for Children with Autism and Mild Intellectual Disability

Background: Autism is a developmental disability characterised by qualitative impairment in social skills, communication skills and restricted and repetitive behaviour. Approximately 70% of children with Autism will have a Learning Disability. Research suggests that children with Autism are at significantly increased risk of developing mental health problems during childhood and later in life. Children with Autism and Learning Disability, (defined as IQ<70 on an individually administered test of intelligence and associated delays in adaptive behaviour), are more vulnerable as they have additional learning problems alongside these social and emotional deficits. These additional deficits may increase the risk of psychopathology. It is therefore hypothesised that the development of an intervention to increase social and emotional skills in these children will reduce risk of mental health problems and improve psychological well-being.

Emotion-based Social Skills Training is a novel intervention that was originally developed to help children with Asperger’s Syndrome understand their own and others’ emotions, as well as regulate their emotions. This training uses developmental models of social and emotional development, emotional competence, and emotional intelligence. It has been shown to be effective for children with Asperger’s Syndrome in two pilot studies.

The current study has modified the Emotion-based Social Skills Training by a team comprising of clinical psychologists and speech language pathologist to address the specific learning needs of children with Autism and Learning Disability.  Program modifications include the use of video modelling, video social stories, and augmentative and alternative communication strategies to support children’s language ability.

Objectives: The pilot study was designed to first modify the Emotion-based Social Skills Training program for children with Autism and Learning Disability, and then secondly to compare and evaluate the modified Emotion-based Social Skills Training with the original program.
Methods: The modified program was piloted on 5 children (aged 8-12 years) with a diagnosis of Autism (assessed using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) and a Learning Disability (assessed using the WISC-IV and ABAS-II).
The pilot group was divided into three Modules: Identifying emotions; Understanding others’ emotion and Managing emotions. Parents were asked to attend concurrent sessions to develop their skills as emotion coaches for their child. This was designed to increase likelihood of skill practice at home, and to promote generalisation across settings. The pilot study was evaluated using pre and post-treatment assessment (measures included parent and teacher reports of social skills, emotional well-being, and behaviour), parent and child qualitative questionnaires as indicators of program acceptability and feasibility, and independent clinician-rated home observations of parent-child interactions before and after the training.
Results: The results will be presented in terms of their effectiveness in improving children’s social and emotional well-being, reducing anxiety and depression scores and impact on parental mental health and confidence.

Conclusions: The effectiveness of a modified Emotion-based Social Skills Training for children with Autism and Learning Disability will be compared with results from the original program.