KONTAKT® social skills group training for Australian adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial

Afsharnejad, Bahareh; Falkmer, Marita; Black, Melissa H.; Alach, Tasha; Lenhard, Fabian; Fridell, Anna; Coco, Christina; Milne, Kelly; Bölte, Sven; Girdler, Sonya

doi:10.1007/s00787-021-01814-6

Cited by 14 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Further research to evaluate standardized supports to address higher level and complex support needs is important to address the current gap in the evidence-base. This may be through collaborating with support services to analyze data from outcome measures, realist evaluations (e.g., [ 68 , 69 ]), inclusion as an active control intervention in a randomized control trial (e.g., [ 70 ]) and systematic/scoping reviews of emerging evidence [ 71 ]. Policy makers can facilitate this focus through embedding requirements for support services to utilize outcome measures and report on evaluation systems (at individual and service levels) and using this information to guide decision making.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Support Needs of School-Aged Young People on the Autism Spectrum and Their Caregivers

Evans

Whitehouse

D’Arcy

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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With increasing demands for health, disability and education services, innovative approaches can help distribute limited resources according to need. Despite an increased focus on support needs within the clinical pathway and policy landscape, the body of research knowledge on this topic is at a relatively early stage. However, there appears to be a sense of unmet support needs and dissatisfaction with the provision of required support following an autism diagnosis amongst caregivers of young people on the spectrum. The primary aim of this study was to explore the perceived support needs of Australian school-aged young people on the spectrum and their caregiver(s). This was achieved using a phenomenographic Support Needs Interview conducted by occupational therapists during home-visits with caregivers of 68 young people on the spectrum (5–17 years). Qualitative data analysis resulted in two hierarchical outcome spaces, one each for young people and their caregivers, indicating interacting levels of support need areas that could be addressed through a combination of suggested supports. These support needs and suggested supports align with almost all chapters within the Body Functions, Activities and Participation and Environmental Factors domains of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. The overall goals of meeting these complex and interacting support needs were for the young people to optimize their functioning to reach their potential and for caregivers to ensure the sustainability of their caregiving capacity. A series of recommendations for support services, researchers and policy makers have been made to position support needs as central during the assessment, support and evaluation phases.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Support Needs of School-Aged Young People on the Autism Spectrum and Their Caregivers

Evans

Whitehouse

D’Arcy

et al. 2022

IJERPH

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“…Overall, the included studies (k = 18) evaluated seven unique manualised SSGPs delivered to autistic youth with IQ > 70, including (a) Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relationship Skills (PEERS®; k = 8; Laugeson et al, 2009;Matthews et al, 2018;Matthews et al, 2020;Rabin et al, 2018;Schohl et al, 2014;Shum et al, 2019;Van Hecke et al, 2015;Yoo et al, 2014), (b) KONTAKT® (k = 3;Choque Olsson et al, 2017;Jonsson et al, 2018), (c) SENSE Theatre® (k = 2; Corbett et al, 2016;Corbett et al, 2019), (d) Social Tools and Rules for Teens (START; k = 2; Ko et al, 2019;Vernon et al, 2018), (e) Multimodal Anxiety and Social Skills Program (MASSI; k = 1; White et al, 2013), (f) Sociodramatic Affective Relational Intervention (SDARI; k = 1; Lerner & Mikami, 2012), and (g) SOSTA-FRA (k = 1; Freitag et al, 2016). The majority of the studies were conducted in the United States of America (USA; 65%), with the remainder undertaken in Australia (Afsharnejad et al, 2021a(Afsharnejad et al, , 2021b, China (Shum et al, 2019), Germany (Freitag et al, 2016), Israel (Rabin et al, 2018, Korea (Yoo et al, 2014) and Sweden (Choque Olsson et al, 2017;Jonsson et al, 2018).…”

Section: Narrative Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The number of sessions varied across SSGPs, with the shortest program delivered over four sessions (Lerner & Mikami, 2012). The longest SSGP, KONTAKT®, was delivered over twentyfour sessions (Jonsson et al, 2018), being an extension of a shorter 12-session (Choque Olsson et al, 2017) and medium 16-session variants (Afsharnejad et al, 2021a(Afsharnejad et al, , 2021b. Sessions were commonly delivered to small groups of between 3 to 10 participants.…”

Section: Narrative Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…KONTAKT®, PEERS®, SOSTA-FRA, and START, incorporated individually tailored homework assignments to support the generalisation of learnt skills to everyday contexts. Uniquely, the long (Jonsson et al, 2018) and medium (Afsharnejad et al, 2021a(Afsharnejad et al, , 2021b variants of KONTAKT® incorporated components supporting the in-vivo assessment of learnt skills within the sessions (participants leading a session) and the generalisation of skills to a community context (an excursion to a café). In assessing the efficacy of SSGPs programs, four studies employed active control groups (Lerner & Mikami, 2012;Matthews et al, 2018Matthews et al, , 2020 or attempted to control for the effects of exposing autistic adolescents to a supportive social context (Afsharnejad et al, 2021a(Afsharnejad et al, , 2021b.…”

Section: Narrative Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Methodological Quality and Intervention Fidelity of Randomised Controlled Trials Evaluating Social Skills Group Programs in Autistic Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Afsharnejad

Black

Falkmer

et al. 2023

J Autism Dev Disord

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A systematic review and meta-analysis were utilised to explore the methodological quality, program fidelity, and efficacy of social skills group programs (SSGPs) aiming to support autistic adolescents in navigating their everyday social worlds. The study evaluated the methodological quality and theoretical fidelity of studies, with a random effect meta-analysis conducted to summarise the overall efficacy of SSGP and its effect on social communication and interaction, behavioural/emotional challenges, adaptive functioning, and autism characteristics. Although findings from the 18 identified studies indicated an adjusted medium overall effect with these programs successfully supporting autistic adolescents’ socialisation needs (g = 0. 60, p < 0.001), most studies demonstrated medium to low program fidelity despite their good methodological quality. Given the significant heterogeneity of SSGPs and variations in the design and measurement frameworks of efficacy studies, understanding the generalisability of the findings of this research is unclear.

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“…One study used a modified group and individual family-based CBT focused specifically on social skills (White et al, 2013). The control groups for SST were, apart from one study (Afsharnejad et al, 2021) using an interactive cooking programme, waitlist control, treatment as usual or delayed treatment.…”

Section: Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychotherapy for co-occurring symptoms of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis

et al. 2022

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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle accessing psychotherapy services for comorbidities, including anxiety-, depressive- and obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD). Apart from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety in children with ASD, it is unclear whether psychotherapy is effective for these comorbid disorders. We therefore systematically reviewed any form of psychotherapy for co-occurring symptoms of anxiety, depression and OCD in individuals with ASD. Database searches were conducted until February 2022 using EMBASE, PsycINFO and PubMed. Randomised controlled trials (RCT) were included investigating any form of psychotherapy for symptoms of anxiety, depression and OCD in individuals with ASD. Summary data were extracted, and random-effects meta-analyses were conducted. For CBT 26 RCTs (n = 1251), and for social skills training (SST) 11 RCTs (n = 475) met criteria for inclusion. Pooled effect sizes indicated a moderate reduction of anxiety in children (g = −0.70) and a small reduction of depressive symptoms in adults (g = −0.39). For SST overall effect sizes were small for reduction of anxiety in children (g = −0.35) and adults (g = −0.34) and moderate for reduction of depressive symptoms in children (g = −0.50). Risk of bias was high in 18, moderate in 16 and low in 3 RCTs. Our results provide new and age-specific evidence that: (1) CBT is effective for reducing anxiety in children and to a lesser extent for depressive symptoms in adults with ASD; and (2) social skills interventions are effective for reducing anxiety in children and adults and for depressive symptoms in children with ASD.

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KONTAKT® social skills group training for Australian adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial

Cited by 14 publications

References 64 publications

Perceived Support Needs of School-Aged Young People on the Autism Spectrum and Their Caregivers

Perceived Support Needs of School-Aged Young People on the Autism Spectrum and Their Caregivers

The Methodological Quality and Intervention Fidelity of Randomised Controlled Trials Evaluating Social Skills Group Programs in Autistic Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Psychotherapy for co-occurring symptoms of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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