Simmons Grace Lee, Ioannou Sara, Smith Jessica V, Corbett Blythe A, Lerner Matthew D, White Susan W
Department of Psychology, Center for Youth Development and Intervention, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
Autism Res. 2021 Apr;14(4):709-719. doi: 10.1002/aur.2404. Epub 2020 Oct 9.
Models of impaired social competence in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) highlight deficits in social cognition and social behavior. The Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (CASS) is a laboratory-based assessment of conversation ability in which participants interact with trained confederates who act interested (CASS-I) and bored (CASS-B), sequentially. The increased ecological validity of the CASS allows for better generalization to real-world social situations. Participants' perceptions of confederate behavior, assessed by the CASS Conversation Rating Scale (CRS), might offer additional utility as a metric of social cognition. The current study examined CASS confederate behavior (adherence to interested or bored condition) and both internal validity and convergent validity of the CASS as a measure of social behavior and social cognition. Fifty adolescents with ASD participated as part of a multisite randomized clinical trial. Adherence ratings were consistent across gender and site, with interested confederates significantly out-performing bored confederates. The ability to distinguish between interested and bored confederates was positively associated with CASS social behavior and social cognition tasks, although social behavior during the CASS was not consistently associated with parent-rated social behavior. Controlling for confederate behavior did not significantly alter these associations. Findings demonstrate strong internal validity of the CASS and, partially, external validity of the CASS as a measure of social cognition. Findings highlight nuanced differences in social behavior and social cognition. The CASS shows promise as an outcome measure for clinical interventions and should be incorporated into a multimethod battery to assess social competence in individuals with ASD. LAY SUMMARY: Social cognition and social behavior should be studied together to examine social competence in youth with autism. The Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (CASS), a behavioral observation measure, shows promise toward this end; findings suggest the CASS taps social cognition and social behavior when administered alongside a participant rating scale of their conversation partner's engagement. Continued research, including examination of the CASS, may inform best practices in comprehensive assessment of social competence in autism. Autism Res 2021, 14: 709-719. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中社交能力受损的模型突出了社交认知和社交行为方面的缺陷。社交技能情境评估（CASS）是一种基于实验室的对话能力评估，参与者依次与表现出感兴趣（CASS-I）和厌烦（CASS-B）的经过训练的同谋进行互动。CASS生态效度的提高使其能更好地推广到现实世界的社交情境中。通过CASS对话评定量表（CRS）评估的参与者对同谋行为的认知，可能作为一种社交认知指标具有额外的效用。本研究考察了CASS同谋行为（对感兴趣或厌烦状态的遵循）以及CASS作为社交行为和社交认知测量方法的内部效度和收敛效度。五十名患有ASD的青少年作为多中心随机临床试验的一部分参与研究。遵循评分在性别和研究地点之间是一致的，表现出感兴趣的同谋明显比表现出厌烦的同谋表现更好。区分感兴趣和厌烦同谋的能力与CASS社交行为和社交认知任务呈正相关，尽管CASS期间的社交行为与家长评定的社交行为并不始终相关。控制同谋行为并没有显著改变这些关联。研究结果证明了CASS具有很强的内部效度，并且部分证明了CASS作为社交认知测量方法的外部效度。研究结果突出了社交行为和社交认知方面细微的差异。CASS有望作为临床干预的结果测量指标，应纳入多方法组合中以评估ASD个体的社交能力。内容摘要：应将社交认知和社交行为结合起来研究，以考察自闭症青少年的社交能力。社交技能情境评估（CASS）作为一种行为观察测量方法，有望实现这一目标；研究结果表明，当与参与者对其对话伙伴参与度的评定量表一起使用时，CASS能够考察社交认知和社交行为。持续的研究，包括对CASS的考察，可能为自闭症社交能力综合评估的最佳实践提供参考。《自闭症研究》2021年，14卷：709 - 七一九页。© 2020国际自闭症研究协会和威利期刊有限责任公司
