Improving Empathic Communication Skills in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Koegel, Lynn; Ashbaugh, Kristen; Navab, Anahita; Koegel, Robert L.

doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2633-0

Cited by 58 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…A variety of social skills programs have been developed for autistic adults, under the assumption that improving social understanding and ability will improve functional outcomes [Eack et al, 2013;Spain & Blainey, 2015]. Because autistic adults without intellectual disability often perform poorly on measures of social cognition [Morrison et al, 2019;Velikonja, Fett, & Velthorst, 2019], including in the areas of social attention [Pelphrey et al, 2002;Sasson et al, 2007], affect recognition [Eack, Mazefsky, & Minshew, 2015], and advanced theory of mind [Baron-Cohen, Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997], programs often focus on social cognition and explicitly teach strategies for improving performance Kandalaft, Didehbani, Krawczyk, Allen, & Chapman, 2013;Koegel, Ashbaugh, Navab, & Koegel, 2016;Turner-Brown, Perry, Dichter, Bodfish, & Penn, 2008]. Indeed, these programs often do improve performance on specific tasks [Bishop-Fitzpatrick, Minshew, & Eack, 2014;Kandalaft et al, 2013;Koegel et al, 2016], and confer other benefits like increasing knowledge about social skills [Gates, Kang, & Lerner, 2017] and facilitating friendship development when a peer group component is included [Spain & Blainey, 2015].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social cognition as a predictor of functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability

et al. 2019

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Autistic adults, including those without intellectual disability, commonly experience poor social and functional outcomes. Although reduced social cognitive ability in autism is often theorized as a mechanism of these poor outcomes, there has been surprisingly little empirical work testing this assumption. Here, 103 autistic adults without intellectual disability completed a comprehensive battery that included eight social cognitive tasks psychometrically validated for use with this population (e.g., emotion recognition and theory of mind), five tasks assessing neurocognitive abilities (e.g., processing speed and working memory), performance‐based measures of their functional skills, and a standardized assessment of their social skills. Collectively, the combination of demographic variables, IQ, neurocognitive performance, and social cognitive performance accounted for 49% of the variance in functional skills and 33% of the variance in social skills. For functional skills, demographic variables, and general and neurocognition independently accounted for a significant portion of the variance, but social cognition did not. Social cognition did, however, significantly mediate the effect of neurocognition on functional skills. Social cognition also accounted for significant proportion in the variance in social skills above and beyond the relatively large contribution of neurocognition. Taken together, findings indicate that social cognitive ability contributes to functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability, but this contribution may be more limited and indirect than commonly assumed. Autism Res 2020, 13:259–270. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary Many social programs for autistic adults presume that improving social cognition will translate to better life outcomes. In this study of 103 autistic adults without intellectual disability, we found that social cognitive abilities do contribute to real‐world social and daily living skills, but this contribution is small and indirect once general‐cognitive abilities are taken into account. Although results substantiate social cognition as an independent cognitive capacity in autism spectrum disorder, its unique contribution to functional and social outcomes may be more limited than previously assumed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social cognition as a predictor of functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability

et al. 2019

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“…These deficits in initiations continue beyond early childhood. School-aged children, adolescents, and adults with ASD initiate social conversation less often which may interfere with the development of social relationships (Hauck et al 1995; Koegel et al 2016b; Stone and Caro-Martinez 1990). In addition, deficits in initiations often lead to directive parent behaviors because parents tend to compensate for their child’s lack of initiations rather than providing him or her with opportunities to initiate (Hudry et al 2013; Wan et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of Parent Education in Pivotal Response Treatment on Pivotal and Collateral Responses

Verschuur

Huskens

Didden

2019

J Autism Dev Disord

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In two studies, we investigated the effectiveness of parent education in Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) on parent-created opportunities and spontaneous child initiations in two community-based treatment facilities for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Changes in parental stress and self-efficacy were explored. Participants were 26 parents and their children who participated in group (Study 1) or individual (Study 2) parent education in PRT. Results indicated that group-based parent education resulted in moderate increases in opportunities, functional initiations, and empathic social initiations. Furthermore, parental stress reduced and self-efficacy increased. Individual parent education resulted in large increases in opportunities and functional initiations, but parental stress and self-efficacy did not change. Implications for clinical practice and directions for future research are discussed. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10803-019-04061-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…as well as in real life, social and occupation functioning were found post-training, suggesting that the virtual reality platform is a promising tool for improving SS and functioning in ASD. Koegel, Ashbaugh, Navab & Koegel (2016) examined the effectiveness of a video feedback intervention to improve empathic verbal statements and questions, using a multiple baseline. After the intervention, all participants improved verbal expression of empathetic statements and questions during the conversation with generalization and maintenance of Development, v. 9, n. 7, e414974287, 2020 (CC BY 4.0) | ISSN 2525-3409 | DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v9i7.4287 gains.…”

Section: Significant Increases On Social Cognitive Measures Of Emotiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Social skills training possibilities for adults with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review

Rubim

Hora

2020

RSD

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Man, as a social being, needs a behavioral repertoire that guides his relations in society. This varied set of behaviors is called social skills, and can be learned throughout the life cycle. People with neurodevelopmental disorder have a deficit in social relationships as a prominent symptom, requiring reinforcing spaces that enable the construction of a socially skilled behavioral repertoire. Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has aroused the interest of several areas, however, the focus of studies remains in childhood. This study aimed to investigate possibilities of intervention with adults diagnosed with ASD, as a tool for social skills training (SST), a systematic attempt to teach strategies and interpersonal skills in order to improve the quality of the interactions that permeate interpersonal relationships. The methodology was based on a systematic review in the Virtual Health Library, by using the uni-terms “social skills”, “adults”, “autism”. Included were productions available in full, which presented interventions with adults with ASD and the development of social skills. The studies resulting from this selection were fully analyzed. The results discuss the effectiveness of interventions with this population for the development of social skills. It is concluded that SST is a possibility of effective intervention with atypical adults.

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Improving Empathic Communication Skills in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 58 publications

References 35 publications

Social cognition as a predictor of functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability

Social cognition as a predictor of functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability

Effectiveness of Parent Education in Pivotal Response Treatment on Pivotal and Collateral Responses

Social skills training possibilities for adults with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review

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