Effects of a Social Skills Intervention on Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Peers with Shared Deficits

The current study evaluated the effects of the Superheroes Social Skills program (Jenson et al. 2011) in promoting accurate demonstration of target social skills in training and generalization conditions in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and peers with shared social deficits. Three preschool-age children with ASD and 2 typically developing peers with social deficits attended twice-weekly social skills training over 5 weeks, with lessons targeting nonverbal, participation, requesting, and conversation skills. A multiple probe design across social skills replicated across participants was utilized to determine the effect of participation in the intervention on accurate demonstration of target social skills in training and generalized contexts. Results demonstrated improvements in accuracy of target skill demonstration following introduction of intervention. Parental reports of participant social functioning and parent stress were collected as secondary dependent measures, and also suggest improvements associated with intervention. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.