Efficacy of the Social Adjustment Enhancement Intervention: A Follow-up Study

Background:

Solomon, Goodlin-Jones, and Anders (2004) showed that the Social Adjustment Enhancement Intervention (SAEI) is a promising intervention for increasing social skills in higher-functioning children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The SAEI curriculum was primarily designed to address deficits in emotion recognition, theory of mind, and executive functions, and thus, Solomon et al. (2004) primarily assessed improvements in these areas.

Objectives:

The aim of this study was to more broadly assess the impact of the SAEI on social skills, including social performance (applying social skills appropriately in everyday life), social motivation (interest in social interactions), and social self-efficacy (self-confidence in social skills).  

Methods:

Twenty-four children and adolescents with ASD, ages 10-16, participated in the current study. Fourteen participants were enrolled in the SAEI. These participants met for 90 minutes/week over 22 weeks and were administered a revised version of the SAEI curriculum (Solomon et al., 2004). Ten participants, matched on age and IQ, were not enrolled in the SAEI and served as a control group. Social skills were assessed before the intervention began, after the intervention ended, and approximately 4.5 months after the intervention ended.

Both child and parent completed the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham & Elliott, 1990) as an index of social performance. Additionally, the child completed the Interpersonal Orientation Scale (IOS; Hill, 1987) as an index of social motivation and the Adolescent Social Self Efficacy Scale (ASSES; Connolly, 1989) as an index of social self-efficacy. 

Results:

There was a significant effect of time on SSRS Social Skills Total for both parent and child report, F(2, 42) = 3.22, p = 0.05, η²_p = 0.13, such that social performance significantly increased from pre-intervention to post-intervention, F(1, 21) = 4.56, p = 0.05, η²_p = 0.18, but did not differ between post-intervention and 4.5 months post-intervention, F(1, 21) = 0.15, p = 0.70, η²_p = 0.01. There was a marginally significant effect of time on ASSES Total, F(2, 44) = 2.85, p = 0.07, η²_p = 0.12, such that social self-efficacy marginally increased from pre-intervention to post-intervention, F(1, 22) = 3.01, p = 0.10, η²_p = 0.12, but did not differ between post-intervention and 4.5 months post-intervention, F(1, 22) = 0.03, p = 0.87, η²_p < 0.01. Time did not have a significant effect on IOS Total, F(2, 44) = 2.33, p = 0.11, η²_p = 0.10, although the effect may have reached significance with a bigger sample size. Group and the interaction between time and group did not show significant effects in any of the analyses. 

Conclusions:

This preliminary evidence suggests that both social performance and social self-efficacy increased in participants with ASD from pre-intervention to post-intervention. These increased social skill abilities may be the result of the SAEI, or, as the control group of participants showed a similar improvement, these increased abilities may simply be related to developmental maturation. A randomized controlled trial is an important next step in teasing apart the effects of the intervention versus developmental maturation.