Strategies for enhancing social skills of individuals with intellectual disability: A systematic review.
Udeme Samuel Jacob, Isioma Sitamalife Edozie, Jace Pillay
PMID 36188912WHAT IT FOUND
Some social skills interventions improved participants' skills, but gains often did not generalise.
For intellectual disability, no single approach is proven, so clinicians should treat any intervention as tentative and monitor real-world use.
Key findings
01The review included 10 studies and 456 participants, but 4 studies had fewer than 10 participants.
02The 10 included studies tested 12 different social skills interventions.
03The largest study, with 296 participants and a randomised design, found a significant treatment effect only for parental ratings in the adolescent subgroup.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The studies did not use a standard definition or measure of social skills, so their results cannot be compared directly. Many samples were small, and some studies had fewer than 10 participants, so it is hard to tell which effects are reliable. The included population was mixed, with some studies involving intellectual disability only and others involving autism spectrum disorder or combined intellectual disability and autism. Generalisation to new settings was not consistently shown. The review only included English, open-access articles, so relevant studies may have been missed. No formal quality appraisal or risk-of-bias assessment is reported in the supplied text.
Declared interests
No funding source or conflict-of-interest declaration is reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that social skills interventions are proven to improve daily functioning. The review combined small, heterogeneous studies, and several outcomes were measured differently; some participants did not generalise skills to new settings.