An Evaluation of a Social Skills Intervention for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disabilities preparing for Employment in Ireland: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are faced with significant barriers relating to employment opportunities and workplace participation. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Walker social skills curriculum: the ACCESS program and video modeling to increase social communication skills necessary for workplace inclusion. Participants attended two sessions (i.e., 3 h) per week across a period of 20 weeks. A multiple-probe design was used to demonstrate social skills outcomes across three broad curricular areas (i.e., peer-related, adult-related, and self-related social skills). Pre-and post-intervention standardized assessments were also taken. Results showed significant increases in target social skills and a significant decrease in problem behaviors following intervention. Evidence of maintenance and generalization were also demonstrated. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Factors impacting employment for people with autism spectrum disorder: A scoping review

“…Articles were categorised according to employment type, including vocational skills training, such as work experience or an internship, and sheltered, supported or competitive employment. The majority of articles (k=98) focused on participants with ASD finding and securing roles in paid, supported or competitive employment, while 16 studies investigated work experience or vocational skills training with the goal of individuals eventually obtaining supported or competitive employment (Allen et al, 2010a;Allen et al, 2010b;Arikawa et al, 2013;Briel and Getzel, 2014;Burgess and Cimera, 2014;Burke et al, 2010;Burke et al, 2013;Dotson et al, 2013;Gal et al, 2015b;Gilson and Carter, 2016;Hayes et al, 2015;Seaman and Cannella-Malone, 2016;Anderson et al, 2017;Baker-Ericzen et al, 2018;Rosen et al, 2017;Walsh et al, 2018). One study explored whether participating in sheltered workshops prior to engaging in supported open employment improved vocational outcomes for individuals with ASD (Table 2) (Cimera et al, 2012).…”

“…Twenty-three studies evaluated the change in vocational skills used in completing work-related tasks, socialising in the workplace and communicating, as shown in Table 4 (Dotson et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2013), Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) (Gentry et al, 2015;Wehman et al, 2014;Wehman et al, 2016b), Employee Performance Evaluation Report (Gentry et al, 2015), Social Responsiveness Scale-2 (Smith et al, 2014;Strickland et al, 2013), Social Skills Improvement Rating Scales (Walsh et al, 2018), repeatable battery for the assessment of neuropsychological status and Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (Smith et al, 2014). A useability study of a video-modelling intervention found that individuals with ASD had greater difficulty selecting adaptive social responses during workplace scenarios compared to typically developing controls (P=0.02).…”

Social Interaction Skill Intervention for Autistic Adults with Intellectual Disability and Limited Language: A Pilot of the SKILL Program

“…Past research supports the positive benefits of a hands-on, experiential learning (a "learn by doing" approach) to promote social communication gains for autistic adults with co-occurring ID (Carminati et al 2007;Ryan et al 2019;Walsh et al 2018Walsh et al , 2019. In an experiential learning context, competencies are acquired through immersion in a natural or quasi-natural social learning context (e.g., engagement with peers) and subsequent feedback on one's performance.…”

“…Specific motivational strategies that are associated with these gains include the use of experiential learning activities, thematic interests, visual aids, and supportive group contexts that incorporate both social instruction and practice with same-aged peers (Barry et al 2003;Gates et al 2017;Harrop et al 2019;Pallathra et al 2019). Among autistic adults with co-occurring ID, a motivating group socialization context may promote the development of social communication and interaction skills (Walsh et al 2018).…”

“…There is growing evidence that video modeling is effective for teaching social communication skills and facilitates skill acquisition and maintenance (Hume et al 2009). For autistic adults with co-occurring ID, video-modeling has been used to improve social perception skills (Stauch et al 2018) and to enhance social behaviors in a vocational setting (Walsh et al 2018). Similarly, autistic adolescents and adults with ID demonstrated improvements in social ability, engagement, and functional communication following the TEACCH program, which relies heavily on visual modeling (Siaperas and Beadle-Brown 2006).…”