A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Motivation-Based Social Skills Group Treatment with Parent Training.
Jane Shkel, Alicia Geng, Elise Pilchak and 10 others
PMID 38446265WHAT IT FOUND
Children with ASD in a 12-week social group plus parent training made more verbal requests to peers than a treatment-as-usual group.
A blinded clinician rated them as more improved. Parent questionnaires showed no difference. Small pilot, 25 children.
Key findings
01Children in the SUCCESS group made significantly more total initiations to peers by week 12 than the TAU group (p = 0.010, ηp² = 0.28). The gain was in behavior regulation initiations (requests): both prompted (p = 0.050) and unprompted (p = 0.002, ηp² = 0.37). Social initiations showed no group difference.
02A clinician blinded to group assignment rated 64% of SUCCESS children as 'much improved' in social communication, compared with 0% of TAU children (p = 0.013). Standardized parent questionnaires (SRS-2, Vineland-III, SSIS) showed no significant group differences.
03Among SUCCESS children, lower baseline social motivation was associated with greater parent-reported improvement in initiation frequency (r = −0.78, p = 0.005).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Recruitment stopped during the pandemic, leaving 25 children, which limits the power to detect differences. The SUCCESS group spent more time in the preschool classroom, so their better performance on the 10-minute peer interaction probe could partly reflect familiarity with the setting, materials, and peers rather than a treatment effect. The social group and parent training were delivered together, so the contribution of either component alone cannot be separated. Only baseline and week 12 were compared; there is no follow-up data to show whether gains were maintained after treatment ended. No multiple comparison correction was applied across the many outcome measures. All but one child in the SUCCESS group identified as Asian, which limits generalizability.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing or potential conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that social skills groups work for all children with ASD. It is a pilot with 25 children, no correction for multiple comparisons, and the parent-rated global measures showed no group difference. The two components (social group and parent training) were delivered together and cannot be separated.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →