Quantifying Acquisition and Performance Deficits and Strengths as Social Skills Profiles in Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

• In Event: Innovations in Measurement of Social Competence in Child Clinical Populations

Abstract

Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social interaction. It has long been assumed that such deficits arise from a lack of knowledge, or acquisition, of social skills (Bishop-Fitzpatrick et al., 2017). However, recent evidence suggests that these challenges may reflect deficits in social performance (i.e., not executing already known social behaviors; Mendelson et al., 2016) or simply the presence of fewer social skills strengths (Gresham et al., 2010). Until recently, no methodology existed to systematically examine the relative distribution of these strengths and deficits (i.e., a Social Skills Deficits and Strengths Profile; SSDSP) and test these hypotheses. Gresham et al., (2010) developed an alternative scoring method for the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS; Gresham & Elliot, 2008), which has revealed important information about the SSDSP in other child clinical populations (Aduen et al. 2018) but has never been used with ASD youth. This study sought to characterize the relative contribution of acquisition and performance deficits in youth with ASD as instantiated in the SSDSP.
Methods: Parents of 254 youth with and without ADOS-2-confirmed ASD completed the SSIS (See Table 1). Using the Gresham et al. (2010) scoring method (See Table 1), SSDSPs were created to assess the distribution of social skills deficits and strengths for each population. A repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to examine differences within and between diagnostic groups across the SSDSP.

Results: The overall RM-ANOVA was significant (p <.001). Probing of this effect showed that ASD youth had significantly more deficits and significantly fewer strengths than participants without ASD (all p < .001; Figure 1). Within the ASD SSDSP, youth present significantly larger social performance deficits than acquisition deficits or strengths (all p < .001; Figure 1). Overall, ASD performance deficits were more prevalent than any aspect of the SSDSP in either group (all p <.01).
Discussion: These analyses revealed that ASD youth exhibit more social skills acquisition and performance deficits and fewer social skills strengths than non-ASD youth. However, contrary to some models of social functioning in ASD (e.g., Mesibov, 1984), social performance deficits were by far the most prevalent aspect of the SSDSP within the ASD group and were more prevalent than any feature in either population. While acquisition deficits were almost twice as prevalent in the ASD group, they still remained a small minority of the SSDSP within the ASD group, and were much less prevalent than performance deficits or strengths. Difficulties in social interaction have often been attributed primarily to acquisition deficits in youth with ASD (Bishop-Fitzpatrick et al., 2017). This may be because they are relatively more frequent compared to individuals without ASD; however, in this study they still remained absolutely infrequent within the ASD population. These findings suggest that ASD youth are aware of, but not enacting, a considerable amount of social behaviors and underscore the importance of examining the SSDSP, and specifically social skills performance challenges, when attempting to remediate social skills deficits in adolescents with ASD.

Authors

• Jacquelyn A Gates, Stony Brook Unviersity
  Presenting Author

• Alan Gerber, Stony Brook Unviersity
  Non-Presenting Author

• Caroline E Miller, University of British Columbia (UBC)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matthew D Lerner, Stony Brook Unviersity
  Non-Presenting Author