标题: 社会技能训练应置于自然环境下进行 [打印本页] 作者: heping_zhu 时间: 2007-7-17 12:30 标题: 社会技能训练应置于自然环境下进行 美国印弟安那大学研究发现：对自闭症孩子进行的社会技能训练收效甚微。未达到设计目的。但是在正常学校环境下进行的社会技能教育项目比其他环境下产生了积极的影响。因此鼓励教师和其他人员将社会技能训练置于一种自然环境下进行。（摘自美国自闭症社会网2007，6，28）
Indiana University Study Suggests Social Skills Programs for Children With Autism Are Largely Ineffective
Thursday, June 28, 2007
By: Robin Gurley
Programs Designed to Teach Social Skills to Children with Autism are Failing to Meet Their Goals
Science Daily - A meta-analysis of 55 published research studies reveals programs designed to teach social skills to children with autism are failing to meet their goals. The study, conducted at Indiana University, found that outcomes for social skills training were poor overall, but programs held in normal classroom settings were more likely to result in positive changes than programs held in other environments.
"The results of the meta-analysis are certainly hard to swallow, but they do shed some light on factors that lead to more beneficial social outcomes for children with autism," said lead researcher Scott Bellini, assistant director of IU's Indiana Resource Center for Autism and assistant professor in the School of Education. "These results underscore the critical need for researchers and practitioners to develop more effective social skills programming."
The reviewed studies included a total of 147 students with an autism spectrum disorder, with students ranging in age from preschool to secondary school. The programs aimed to address skills such as group play, joint attention and language usage, or to improve performance of social behaviors, such as initiating interactions, responding to communication and maintaining interactions. Overall, the programs resulted in little change in the targeted behaviors, and students did not apply the skills outside the programs.
However, students receiving social skills programming in their usual classrooms had substantially more favorable outcomes than students who received services in a pull-out setting. Students in classroom-based programs were more likely to engage the targeted skills during the program, and showed a greater tendency to maintain changes in behaviors and to utilize these skills in other settings.
"This finding has important implications for school-based social skill interventions. Teachers and other school personnel should place a premium on selecting social skill interventions that can be reasonably implemented within naturalistic settings," Bellini said.
The study revealed additional potential improvements in the design and implementation of the programs:
Increase dosage. The programs in the studies failed to provide sufficient amounts of programming, based on current research recommendations. Implementing services more intensely and frequently may lead to better outcomes, Bellini said.
Match programs to skill deficits. All but one of the 55 studies failed to distinguish between "performance deficits," which refer to skills that are present but not performed, and "skill acquisition deficits," which refer to the absence of a skill or behavior. Targeting the types of skill deficits exhibited by the participants could lead to more successful programs, Bellini said.
Ensure proper implementation. Only 14 of the studies in the meta-analysis measured whether the program was implemented as designed. "This makes it extremely difficult to conclude whether a social skills program was ineffective because of an ineffectual strategy or because the strategy was implemented poorly," Bellini said.
The study, "A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Social Skills Interventions for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders," was published in this month's Journal of Remedial and Special Education.
However, students receiving social skills programming in their usual classrooms had substantially more favorable outcomes than students who received services in a pull-out setting.
"This finding has important implications for school-based social skill interventions. Teachers and other school personnel should place a premium on selecting social skill interventions that can be reasonably implemented within naturalistic settings,"
Study Finds Pull-Out Social Skills Therapy Is Ineffective - What's Your Opinion?
People with autism all have difficulty in grasping and using social skills. For some, that means an inability to verbalize at all; for others it means difficulty interpreting facial expressions or appropriately responding to greetings. To yet others, often those with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, it means an inability to carry on an ordinary conversation in an ordinary way.
To address this problem, schools and independent practitioners have developed social skills therapies. Often, these take the form of formal practice sessions set in an office or classroom. Sometimes, social skills therapists use curricula developed by experts - but more often they simply practice play skills and conversational techniques.
Over the past years, a number of researchers have conducted studies to figure out whether this type of therapy really helps kids achieve more typical social relationships. A group at Indiana University did a "meta study" to review the existing reports. Here's what they found:
A meta-analysis of 55 published research studies reveals programs designed to teach social skills to children with autism are failing to meet their goals. The study, conducted at Indiana University, found that outcomes for social skills training were poor overall, but programs held in normal classroom settings were more likely to result in positive changes than programs held in other environments.
Obviously, this finding would suggest (in my opinion very reasonably) that artificial settings in which autistic children practice social skills with one another and an adult are unlikely to produce much in the way of "typical" social behavior. From what I have seen so far, these sessions tend to produce adult-pleasing behaviors (such as using please and thank you, asking follow-up questions, and making eye contact). But they do very little to help our children understand typical kids, who tend NOT to say please, ask about the weekend, or even make much eye contact!
In fact, because these sessions are so often taught by adult women to little boys, I believe they wind up helping the boys to act more like adult women! Women are the ones who love to sit around and chat, make eye contact, and generally share feelings and experiences. Boys and men, at least in my experience, are far more likely to actually DO things together (play games, share technology and the like) - and to converse relatively little. When they do talk, it's usually about the activity in which they're engaged, not about distant people and things.
Of course, the ideal would be to get groups of typical and autistic children together in naturalistic settings - recess, lunch, after school - to share things like gameboy strategies or just to shoot hoops. So far, our school district has told us consistently that this is impossible! The reasons range from scheduling conflicts to privacy issues to lack of staffing.