Center for Autism Research and Treatment, 68-268 Semel Institute UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA.
Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2012 Dec;14(6):713-25. doi: 10.1007/s11920-012-0317-4.
Children with an autism spectrum disorder have significant impairment in social skills. This area of development has also been the focus of many intervention studies. In this article we review intervention studies published over the past two years. Three topical areas were addressed in current interventions: social skills knowledge, peer relationships, and joint attention/joint engagement. Younger children most often received interventions on joint attention/joint engagement and older, higher functioning children received interventions on social knowledge and peer relationship development. Both single subject research designs and group designs were reviewed. One advancement was that more randomized controlled trials were reported, as well as effectiveness trials in the community. Study quality was also rated. More group than single subject designs were rated as adequate or strong in quality. Overall, moderate to large effects were found for interventions targeting joint attention/joint engagement and peer relationships with mixed effects on interventions targeting social skills knowledge. Future studies should focus on isolating the active ingredients of interventions and include broader participant representation.
自闭症谱系障碍儿童的社交技能存在明显缺陷。这一发展领域也是许多干预研究的重点。本文回顾了过去两年发表的干预研究。目前的干预措施主要集中在三个方面：社交技能知识、同伴关系和共同关注/共同参与。较小的儿童通常接受共同关注/共同参与方面的干预，而年龄较大、功能较高的儿童则接受社交知识和同伴关系发展方面的干预。本文回顾了单一被试研究设计和群组设计。一个进步是，更多的随机对照试验以及社区内的有效性试验得到了报告。研究质量也得到了评估。在针对共同关注/共同参与和同伴关系的干预措施中，更多的群组设计被评为质量良好或优秀，而针对社交技能知识的干预措施的效果则混合不一。未来的研究应集中于分离干预措施的有效成分，并纳入更广泛的参与者代表性。
