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Social Skills Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

April 14, 2014

The combined child and peer social skills intervention for elementary school children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) utilizes direct instruction of the target child with ASD and peer models to enhance social skills and engagement.  An experimental evaluation of this combined approach found that it had a significant impact on the improvement of children’s social network salience.  While the combined intervention was consistently better than the child intervention alone (child approach), it only had marginally bigger impacts than the peer intervention alone.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of School-Refusing Children

April 14, 2014

Cognitive-behavioral therapy was given to school-refusing children. The six therapy sessions explored ways in which children could recognize and cope with their anxiety, and gradually exposed children to anxiety-provoking situations. Results indicated that children who received treatment improved their school attendance as well as their emotional distress and coping mechanisms. No differences were found between the treatment group and control group in internalizing and externalizing behaviors reported by teachers or externalizing behaviors reported by parents.