Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrate atypical development, resulting in significant deficits in perspective-taking and observational learning. Children with ASD tend to have challenges in social interactions and academic performance, such as comprehending narrative texts, which heavily rely on accurate understanding of the…

Limited research has explored how to best train caregivers to support their child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) despite caregivers being well suited to promote generalization and maintenance of their child's skills in the natural environment. Children with ASD have been shown to benefit from social skill training, which is not always…

Interest continues to be high in technology-based interventions for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Understanding the preferences and challenges of technology use among individuals with ASD can inform the design of such interventions. Through 18 interviews with parents, we used an iterative inductive-deductive approach to…

Despite widespread clinical use of group-based social skills training (SST) for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there remains a lack of follow-up data, generalisation effects, common definition of social skills, and teacher report data. This study evaluated the effectiveness of an 8-week SST intervention with a play component…

With Latent Class Analysis applied on data of 98 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (9-12 years; 17 girls) participating in social skills training (SST) in a randomized controlled trial (Dekker et al. 2019), four subgroups were detected, based on social-communicative skills before, and response patterns to training. Two subgroups…

Social competence training for adults with ASD were limited in comparison to intervention for children or adolescents. CBT-CSCA is a culturally-sensitive social competence training specially developed for adolescents in Hong Kong. With its demonstrated effectiveness, the current study outlined the adaptions of its adult version, CBT-CSCA (Adult)…

One-to-one instruction is a critical component of evidence-based instruction for students with autism spectrum disorder, but is not used as often as recommended. Student characteristics may affect teachers' decisions to select a treatment and/or implement it. This study examined the associations between students' clinical and demographic…

Conversational virtual human (VH) agents are increasingly used to support role-play experiential learning. This project examined whether a Virtual Interactive Training Agent (ViTA) system would improve job interviewing skills in individuals with autism and developmental disabilities (N = 32). A linear mixed model was employed to evaluate adjusted…

This article reports the results of a systematic review of the emerging research on programs and services designed to meet the needs of students with ASD. For the purposes of this review, only articles that included data on program outcomes were included. A total of eight studies that met this criterion were identified. These studies included…

Mimicry involves unconsciously copying the actions of others. Increasing evidence suggests that autistic people can copy the goal of an observed action but show differences in their mimicry. We investigated mimicry in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) within a two-dimensional virtual reality environment. Participants played an imitation game with a…

This randomized controlled trial evaluated the efficacy of a computer software (i.e., "Mind Reading") and in vivo rehearsal treatment on the emotion decoding and encoding skills, autism symptoms, and social skills of 43 children, ages 7-12 years with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD). Children in treatment (n = 22)…

This pilot study evaluated a novel intervention designed to reduce social anxiety and improve social/vocational skills for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The intervention utilized a shared interest in robotics among participants to facilitate natural social interaction between individuals with ASD and typically developing (TD)…

Social deficits are a core characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and co-occurring intellectual disabilities (ASD-ID). Despite persistence of these deficits into adolescence, few social skills interventions have been empirically evaluated for older individuals with ASD-ID. The present investigation adapted an efficacious…

This study compared the teaching interaction procedure to social stories implemented in a group setting to teach social skills to three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The researchers taught each participant one social skill with the teaching interaction procedure, one social skill with the social story procedure, and one social…

Social skills training is a common treatment method for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet very few evidence-based interventions exist to improve social skills for high-functioning adolescents on the spectrum, and even fewer studies have examined the effectiveness of teaching social skills in the classroom. This study examines…