Establishment of Social Skills Training Group in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Effectiveness Analysis

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction, and the presence of restricted, repetitive behavior and interests. Their social relationships with peers may remain a challenge or even worsen for individuals with ASD throughout the school years and beyond. Adolescence may be a particularly difficult developmental period, as they may have greater motivation or desire to engage with peers but also have greater awareness of their social disability. Adolescents with ASD are reported to experience greater loneliness and mood disturbances, and have poorer friendship quality and social network status than their typically developing peers. Moreover, a growing body of literature indicating that students with ASD have increased risk at all kinds of bullying involvement. These findings underscore the importance of providing social skills training. One of the empirically supported intervention program that targets adolescents with ASD is the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®). This is a parent-assisted, manualized social skills training program that addresses crucial areas of social functioning for adolescents. Psycho-education and cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques are employed to help adolescents develop ecologically valid skills for making and maintaining friendships. Moreover, caregiver attendance at the same time in the caregiver group was a mandatory component to enhance the child/s generalization of social skills.

Adolescents with ASD and normal IQ will be recruit to attend the 14-week PEERS® group training together with a parent. The participants will be stratified by gender and randomized to a treatment (TX) group or delayed treatment control (DTC) group. A team member uninvolved in the program made the random allocation with random digit generated by computer.

This study investigated the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of the Taiwanese adolescent PEERS® program.

The PEERS® group will be run by PI and the special education teacher (one is the leader for teen session and the other is the leader for parent session) both with substantial experience conducting social skills programs for children and adolescents, and parent education groups related to ASD, under the on-site supervision of co-PI with comprehensive training through the UCLA PEERS® Clinic by the program developer. Three research assistants (one is a psychiatrist, another is an occupational therapist, and the other is a social worker) will take the part of role-play (following the social scenario script) during PEERS® intervention.

The TX group received 14 weeks of the PEERS® intervention immediately following a baseline assessment, while the DTC group received the same intervention after a 14-week waiting period. Parents and teens attended concurrent sessions held in separate rooms.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* Teens:

  1. currently enrolled in school
  2. clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
  3. experiencing social difficulties
  4. scored ≧ 26 on the caregiver-reported Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ)
  5. verbal fluency in Chinese
  6. with a full-scale IQ \> 70 on WAIS-IV
  7. with motivation to participate in the intervention
* Parents:

  1. verbal fluency in Chinese
  2. with motivation to participate in the intervention

Exclusion Criteria:

1. major mental illness
2. sever visual or hearing impairment