Social Skills Groups and Autism Ranking:

Future Research

Summary of Existing Research

There is a considerable amount of strong positive evidence to suggest that social skills groups may help some autistic children and young people practice and improve a range of social skills. There is much less evidence for any benefit for autistic adults.

Social skills groups are most likely to benefit autistic children and young people with average or above average IQ and with existing language skills.  They may also be most appropriate for children and young people who actively wish to socialise and whose anxiety levels and behaviour are manageable in situations that involve several people at once.

There is a lack of studies which

• investigate socials skills groups for autistic adults
• investigate if autistic people consider the skills taught in social skills groups to be relevant or useful to them
• investigate if the skills taught in social skills programmes programme are transferable to real world settings, such as the workplace, and if they last once the social skills group ends
• investigate if specific elements of social skills groups (such as the group setting or the individual teaching techniques) are more effective than others or whether it is the whole package which is more effective
• Investigate social skills groups against other interventions which are designed to teach social skills.

Recommendations for Future Research

We agree with Cappadocia and Weiss (2011) who recommended:

"Future studies of SSTGs should investigate which target skills and teaching techniques have the largest impact on social skills development among these children and youth. It is also important to understand which teaching techniques are effective within each age group, as developmental level must be considered. In studies that have heterogeneous samples, such as the inclusion of multiple diagnostic groups, large age ranges, and/or both genders, the different subgroups should be contrasted or controlled to assess for significant differences across outcome measures. Researchers may also want to focus on studying the generalization of skills from the intervention context (either group or one-on-one interactions with peers) to other environments such as home, school, and the community in greater detail. Perhaps most important, studies should examine maintenance of change after the intervention is completed, as the building of social skills will only truly be effective if it is also lasting."

We also think that there is a need for more research involving larger, controlled studies of social skills training groups. These should seek to differentiate more clearly between the different types of social skills groups and the different elements within each programme, should investigate socially relevant and useful skills in realistic settings, and should include adults as well as children and young people. They should also investigate if autistic people consider the skills taught in social skills groups to be relevant or useful to them.

Updated

17 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Feb 2016

Next Review

01 Sep 2022