PDA Technology to Improve Self-Awareness in Teens with ASD

Background: It is well documented that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Nonverbal Learning Disabilities (NLD) demonstrate difficulties in social skills and in social awareness.  They have difficulty in accurately reporting own feeling and sensory states.  They also have challenges in taking perspective on these skills.   Successful efforts to address these concerns would likely lead to more successful social interactions and self-management of emotions and sensory states.

Objectives: To demonstrate the effectiveness of PDA technology in increasing self-awareness in Teens with ASD.

Methods: 11 adolescent males: 3 diagnosed with PDD-NOS, 4 Asperger Syndrome, 4 NLD; ages 13 – 17 years old, each had average to above average IQs on the WISC-IV.  Each participant was enrolled in a therapeutic summer program.  They were assigned in one of two groups that were divided by interest, level of functioning and age.  Boys were admitted to camp through an interview and submission of the following documents: school records, psychological reports and completion of agency’s own social checklist and the Walker-McConnell Scale of Social Competence and School Adjustment.

Each boy was given a 41 page Instructional Manual that described the usage of the PDA and definitions of the intervention vocabulary.   The manual was reviewed during social competency groups led by senior staff.  Campers were allowed to bring the Instructional Manual home to review with their parents. 

Data was concurrently entered by staff and camper on the staff’s PDA and was collected across 4 Contexts (Morning, Mid-Morning, After-Lunch and End of Day) and during 4 Settings (Start of Day, Social Thinking, After Lunch and End of Day).  Each Setting had its own set of data collection screens. Data was transferred to a computer and available for charting/graphing.  Individual graphical reports were analyzed regularly with the teens to discuss their ratings.  The full data set was used to perform statistical analyses. 

Results: PDA technology did increase self-awareness in Teens with ASD on several dimensions.  Teens using their prior knowledge of conversational partner correlated with improve conversational flow.  Teens who talked about their conversational partner’s interests correlated positively with partner being more engaged.  There is a strong positive correlation between the Teen’s perception of being positively engaged and his perception of being helpful to the success of the group.  There also is a strong positive correlation between the staff’s perception of the Teen’s being positively engaged and the Staff’s perception of the Teen’s being helpful to the success of the group.

Conclusions: PDA technology and visual graphs facilitate participation and interest of teens with ASD in discussing social awareness.  It enhances teens’ self-awareness of feeling states, sensory systems and cognitive flexibility as it relates to others.  PDAs enable discussion about the ASD perspective in comparison to others’ perspectives of them.  Our data suggests that teens can use the visual graphs to describe their internal states and broaden others’ perspectives of individuals with ASD.  The poster will include examples of screens and data charts.