The Effectiveness of Social Skills Treatment for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Effectiveness of Social Skills Treatment for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A. Pulido-Banner*1 and A. J. Lincoln2, (1) Alliant International University.

Background: Treatment options for social skill deficits in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are limited. Throughout the lifespan, individuals must learn to conform to society’s social expectations or face becoming isolated from peers (Dereli-Iman 2014). The PEERS program (Laugeson, 2014) was created to address the many complexities faced by treating adolescents with ASD and the unique hardships faced when attempting to learn social skills. The PEERS program is an evidence-based program for teen’s with ASD and non-ASD teenagers with disorders that involve social skill deficits (Laugeson, 2014). Currently the sole source of information used to assess social skill ability has been informant report because it is inexpensive, quick, and easy and provides fairly reliable data (Matson & Wilkins, 2009). Some limitations to self-report are the lack of generalizable data and poor consistency across informants which can cause shared method variance (Kaugars et al., 2011). The CASS is currently the only published observational tool to measure ASD symptoms and can be used to increase external validity in evidence based social skills treatment programs (White et al., 2015)

Objectives: The aim of this study was to replicate the findings from the empirically supported PEERS program and to evaluate the effectiveness of a, social skills program for adolescents with ASD by comparing outcome results from informant report and an evidence based observational measure.

Methods: Participants to date are twenty-two 12:0 to 17;11 year-old adolescents with a diagnosis of ASD. ASD diagnoses were confirmed by the ADOS, ADI-R or a qualified mental health professional using the DSM-IV or DSM-V. All participants scored ≥ 70 on standardized measures of intellectual and language abilities. Participants were randomly assigned to either 10 group therapy PEERS sessions (n=22) or a 10- week waitlist (n=10). The participants from the waitlist group were then crossed over into the treatment group following the 10 week waiting period. Outcome measures included Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), Social Skills Improvement System Parent and Teacher (SSIS-P, SSIS-T), Quality of Play Questionnaire-Adolescent version (QPQ-A), Social responsiveness Scale Parent and Teacher (SRS-P, SRS-T), Test of Adolescent Social Skills Knowledge (TASSK), Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SC-90), Friendship Qualities Scale (FQS), Social Anxiety Scale-Parent and Adolescent (SAS-P, SAS-A) and The Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (CASS).

Results: Preliminary findings suggest that adolescents who completed a 10-session PEERS program evidenced clinically significant improvements in social skill ability as measured by self-report, informant report and observational measures. Improvements in conversation skills were found in teens who completed PEERS treatment. Comparative outcomes for participants in the PEERS and waitlist groups will be presented.

Conclusions: Preliminary evidence suggests that the PEERS program demonstrates improvement in social skill ability for adolescents with ASD when measured via informant report or through direct standardized observation employing the CASS. However an unexpected post hoc finding suggested that levels of anxiety increased among adolescents with ASD who participated in the 10 week PEERS treatment group.