Clinical trial NCT03294668: KONTAKT Australia a Social Skills Group Training for Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum
Official title: Developing and Evaluating a Social Skills Group Training for Adolescents on the Autism Spectrum
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder
Keywords: social skills group training
Adolescents
Active control group
Australian
Lead sponsor: Curtin University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Autism Association of Western Australia
name: Karolinska Institutet
First posted: 2017-09-27
Enrollment: 90
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 12
Maximum age (years): 17
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: The participants will be randomly allocated into an intervention group (KONTAKT Australia) and an active control group (Social cooking group).
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: This study evaluates the KONTAKT social skills group training in Australian adolescents on the autism spectrum compared to an active control group which is a group cooking class

Detailed description: KONTAKT is a manualized Social Skills Group Training program designed for children and adolescents with ASD which aims to improve communication, social interaction skills, reduce the severity of ASD symptoms, improve the ability to empathise and adapt in a group setting. A large randomized controlled trial in Sweden found that adolescents who participated in KONTAKT demonstrated improvements in social skills, behaviour, reduced stress and improved overall functioning as reported by parents immediately following and at three months after the program. However, social skills are at least in part influenced by social cultural contexts and there is a need to understand the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of KONTAKT in an Australian context. Moreover, in the previous studies, the social skills groups were compared to treatment as usual groups. Therefore, this study evaluates the KONTAKT social skills group training in Australian adolescents on the autism spectrum compared to an active control group which is a group cooking class

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Individuals aged 12 to 17
* Clinical consensus diagnosis of ASD as defined by DSM-5 and confirmed by the Autism Diagnostic Observation schedule-2
* IQ scores \> 70 as measured by the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence - Second Edition (WASI-II)

Exclusion Criteria:

* Existing prior comorbid externalizing behaviours as assessed by the Childhood Behaviour Checklist (CBCL).
* Clinically assessed self-injurious behaviour
* Low intrinsic motivation to participate in a social skills training group
* Insufficient English language skills

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change in the Emotion Regulation and Social Skills Questionnaire (ERSSQ)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
measure: Mind Reading Battery
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20) and follow up (week 36)
measure: Change in the Circumplex Scale of Interpersonal Efficacy (CSIE)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20) and follow up (week 36)
measure: Change in the Paediatric Quality of life Inventory- 4th edition (PedQL-4.0)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20) and follow up (week 36)
measure: Change in the Perth Loneliness Scale (PALs)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
measure: Change in the Negative Incidents and Effects of Psychological Treatment (NEQ)
timeFrame: Post-test (week 20) and follow up (week 36)
measure: Change in the Child Health Utility 9D (CHU9D)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
measure: Change in Emotions via Experience Sampling (ESM)
timeFrame: Through the intervention until follow up time from week 1 to 36
measure: Change in Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
measure: Change in Treatment Inventory of Costs in Patients (TIC-P)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
measure: Change in social functioning
timeFrame: Time 1 (week 3), Time 2 (week 13 ), Time 3 (week 19)
measure: Treatment Satisfaction Scale
timeFrame: Post-test (week 20)
measure: Change in the Social responsiveness scale - Second Edition (SRS-2)
timeFrame: Baseline (week 0), Post-test (week 20), follow up (week 36), and long follow up (week 74)
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Bentley
country: Australia
facility: Curtin University
state: Western Australia
Study officials:
affiliation: Occupational Therapy Professor - Curtin University
name: Sonya J Girdler, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Afsharnejad B, Falkmer M, Black MH, Alach T, Lenhard F, Fridell A, Coco C, Milne K, Chen NTM, Bolte S, Girdler S. Cross-Cultural Adaptation to Australia of the KONTAKT(c) Social Skills Group Training Program for Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Feasibility Study. J Autism Dev Disord. 2020 Dec;50(12):4297-4316. doi: 10.1007/s10803-020-04477-5.
citation: Afsharnejad B, Falkmer M, Black MH, Alach T, Lenhard F, Fridell A, Coco C, Milne K, Chen NTM, Bolte S, Girdler S. KONTAKT(c) for Australian adolescents on the autism spectrum: protocol of a randomized control trial. Trials. 2019 Dec 9;20(1):687. doi: 10.1186/s13063-019-3721-9.
citation: Afsharnejad B, Falkmer M, Picen T, Black MH, Alach T, Fridell A, Coco C, Milne K, Perry J, Bolte S, Girdler S. "I Met Someone Like Me!": Autistic Adolescents and Their Parents' Experience of the KONTAKT(R) Social Skills Group Training. J Autism Dev Disord. 2022 Apr;52(4):1458-1477. doi: 10.1007/s10803-021-05045-1. Epub 2021 May 3.
citation: Afsharnejad B, Falkmer M, Black MH, Alach T, Lenhard F, Fridell A, Coco C, Milne K, Bolte S, Girdler S. KONTAKT(R) social skills group training for Australian adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2022 Nov;31(11):1695-1713. doi: 10.1007/s00787-021-01814-6. Epub 2021 May 30.