Thursday, May 20, 2010
Franklin Hall B Level 4 (Philadelphia Marriott Downtown)
1:00 PM
Background: Our STAART study examined the efficacy of a manualized parent-assisted social skills intervention (CFT) compared with a delayed treatment control group (DTC) to improve social skills among rigorously diagnosed second to fifth grade children with autism spectrum disorders. Targeted skills included conversational skills, peer entry skills, developing friendship networks, good sportsmanship, good host behavior during play dates, and handling teasing. Our recently reported results revealed that most parent measures of social skill and play date behavior, child measures of popularity and loneliness showed significant post-treatment improvement in the CFT group in comparison with the DTC group. Most measures showing significant post-treatment improvement continued to do so at 3-month follow-up. A notable exception to this pattern of positive findings was teacher reports of withdrawal in the classroom, a significant problem for subjects. Despite teacher reports of improvement in 54.2% of children in the CFT group, group differences were not significant.
Objectives: Our initial treatment hypothesis was that improvement in quality and frequency parent-supervised play dates would improve peer acceptance at school. The present analysis was intended to test this working hypothesis.
Methods: The original design was to administer the intervention only to the CFT group between Time 1 and Time 2 conduct a 3-month follow-up of the CFT group while administering the intervention to the DTC group between Time 2 and Time 3. This permitted increasing sample size by combining results of the CFT group after Time 1 with the results of the DTC group after T3. A Stepwise regression analysis was performed on the combined sample. Demographic variables (Grade in School, Vineland ABS total score, WISC-III-R Verbal IQ, Autism Symptom Screening Questionnaire scores) and general social skill indices (parent report Social Skills Rating Scale subscales) were used to predict teacher-reported withdrawal on the Pupil Evaluation Inventory.
Results: Decreases in conflict on play dates and increases in engaging behaviors (chasing/running, imaginary play and talk) resulting from CFT were the only measures that accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in improvement in teacher-reported withdrawal.
Conclusions: The results confirmed the treatment hypothesis that improvement in quality and frequency parent-supervised play dates would improve peer acceptance at school. These results suggest that modules which further enhance the parent role in supervising play dates may lead to more improvement in peer acceptance at school.
Objectives: Our initial treatment hypothesis was that improvement in quality and frequency parent-supervised play dates would improve peer acceptance at school. The present analysis was intended to test this working hypothesis.
Methods: The original design was to administer the intervention only to the CFT group between Time 1 and Time 2 conduct a 3-month follow-up of the CFT group while administering the intervention to the DTC group between Time 2 and Time 3. This permitted increasing sample size by combining results of the CFT group after Time 1 with the results of the DTC group after T3. A Stepwise regression analysis was performed on the combined sample. Demographic variables (Grade in School, Vineland ABS total score, WISC-III-R Verbal IQ, Autism Symptom Screening Questionnaire scores) and general social skill indices (parent report Social Skills Rating Scale subscales) were used to predict teacher-reported withdrawal on the Pupil Evaluation Inventory.
Results: Decreases in conflict on play dates and increases in engaging behaviors (chasing/running, imaginary play and talk) resulting from CFT were the only measures that accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in improvement in teacher-reported withdrawal.
Conclusions: The results confirmed the treatment hypothesis that improvement in quality and frequency parent-supervised play dates would improve peer acceptance at school. These results suggest that modules which further enhance the parent role in supervising play dates may lead to more improvement in peer acceptance at school.