Brief Report: Does Gender Matter in Intervention for ASD? Examining the Impact of the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention on Social Behavior Among Females with ASD.
Alana J McVey, Hillary Schiltz, Angela Haendel and 8 others
PMID 28391452WHAT IT FOUND
No significant gender differences were found before or after PEERS social-skills intervention.
Females and males with ASD followed a similar response pattern on social-behavior outcomes.
Key findings
01No significant gender differences were found before intervention on self-reported social-skills knowledge, direct social contacts, parent-reported autism-related behaviors, or parent-reported social skills.
02No significant gender main or interaction effects were found after intervention on self-reported social-skills knowledge or direct social contacts.
03No significant gender main or interaction effects were found after intervention on parent-reported autism-related behaviors or parent-reported social skills.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The female group was small, so the gender comparison may be imprecise. The study did not include a treatment-as-usual group, so it cannot separate PEERS from social-skills intervention more generally. The study did not collect qualitative data on how participants experienced the intervention. Gender was reported by parents or participants and was not asked as biological sex, so gender and sex were not separated. The paper did not describe randomisation or assignment details in full; it refers to earlier reports for those methods. Some participants were excluded due to missing outcome data. Some outcome values were adjusted because they were outliers.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the null gender comparison as proof that PEERS has equal benefit for every female. The female group was small, and the study did not examine qualitative experience or all-female groups.