A Peer-mediated Vocational Social Skills Program for Young Adults With Autism

The Assistive Social Skills and Employment Training program (ASSET) is an occupationally-based, work-related social skills intervention, designed to address the pre-employment and mental health needs of young adults with high-functioning autism in school-to-work transition. Knowing that occupational therapy (OT) services designed to address the post-secondary transition needs of this population have been largely unexplored, and recognizing the need for OT students to gain practical experience facilitating psychosocial groups, this study seeks to: (1) evaluate program impacts on participants' psychosocial functioning and work readiness, and (2) pilot the use of OT students as group facilitators. The study will follow a mixed-methods, single group design, using questionnaires and interviews to assess skills, confidence, and psychological wellness before intervention, immediately after, and at follow-up. OT students will also be interviewed and complete pre- and post-intervention assessments of clinical self-efficacy and stress. This project supports the AOTF's objectives by: (1) building OT academic program capacity to partner with university services and the autism community to improve transition outcomes in an underserved group, (2) laying the groundwork for larger, more rigorous studies of ASSET's effectiveness, and (3) gathering pilot data to support future grant applications at the federal level.

There are two specific aims of this study. First, researchers will test the effects of the ASSET Program on: (a) improving social function, work-related social skills, and self-efficacy (primary outcomes), and (b) psychological wellness (secondary outcome) using a quasi-experimental, single group, time series design. Secondly and concurrently, researchers will collect pilot data on the "near peer" mediation aspects of the intervention from the perspectives of OT students and ASSET group participants. Specifically, researchers will measure occupational therapy student facilitators' perceived stress, clinical self-efficacy, and educational value of the experience; and collect data on ASSET participants' ratings of the quality of the facilitation as delivered by occupational therapy graduate students.

Design: Using a quasi-experimental, repeated time series design, this convergent parallel mixed-methods pilot study will use quantitative data to measure change in primary and secondary outcomes, while qualitative data (session feedback forms, pre/post/follow-up interviews) will be collected in order to compare or relate themes to the quantitative findings. Building from the results of our earlier work using professional facilitators, the following two aims will be examined. Psychometric properties of instruments are available in the Appendices.

AIM 1: Evaluate the effects of the ASSET program on the social function, work-related social skills knowledge, confidence (primary outcomes) and psychological wellness (secondary outcomes) of a group of college students with HFASD immediately after the 13-week intervention delivered by graduate students and at 3-month follow-up.

Research Questions and Hypotheses:

Q1: Is ASSET associated with improvements in work-related social skills knowledge, social function, and social self-efficacy when facilitated by OTS? H1: Immediately post intervention, on average, ASSET participants will show statistically significant improvements in primary outcomes (work-related social skills knowledge, social function, and social self-efficacy).

H2: At three-month follow-up, on average, ASSET participants will show declines in primary outcomes, yet scores will remain above baseline and at statistically significant levels.

H3: Immediately post intervention, on average, ASSET participants will show clinically significant improvements in secondary mental health outcomes (anxiety and depression); however, these gains may not reach the level of statistical significance.

H4: At three-month follow-up, on average, ASSET participants will show continued improvements in secondary mental health outcomes (anxiety and depression), with improvements in anxiety reaching a level of statistical significance when compared to baseline.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* 18-29 years of age
* previous diagnosis of autistic disorders, Asperger's disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Exclusion Criteria:

* no current participation in other work related social skills treatment
* no history of other neurological disorders
* no history of major mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia)