Parent Training to Enhance Social Success for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit characteristic deficits in social initiation and there are no empirically validated treatments specifically for this core deficit. While parent training is known to be a critical intervention component, few social skills programs involve parents. This study will capitalize on an existing social skills group already established at the community agency Abilities United, with the goal of enhancing the program's effectiveness by adding a parent component. Specifically, the proposed study will investigate whether a novel parent mediated social skills program (Social SUCCESS), which provides parent training in conjunction with a social skills group intervention, will result in more frequent initiations during play with typically developing peers. Participants will include 50 children with ASD age 4:0 to 6:11 years. Children will be randomly assigned to either Social SUCCESS (N=25) or waiting list (N=25). Treatment will be provided for 8 weeks during a weekly 120-minute social skills group at Abilities United. The study will evaluate the effects of Social SUCCESS on areas of core social deficit including frequency of peer initiations using parent ratings, observational measures, standardized questionnaires, and a social eye tracking task. Outcomes will be compared to a waiting list control group. Findings will be disseminated through presentations and publications to aid clinicians in providing more effective social skills treatment for children with ASD and to enhance the scientific knowledge-base related to evidence-based social skills treatments. This research designed with the goal of stimulating additional scientific inquiry in the area of treatment for core social deficits in ASD and will provide a strong foundation for larger scale grants to study motivation-based interventions to improve social functioning.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Social SUCCESS; Behavioral: Wait List

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 22
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Stanford, California, United States, 94305
      • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 4 years to 6 years (CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• child aged 4.0 to 6.11 years
• child diagnosed with ASD (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; ADOS-2)
• child without intellectual disability (Stanford Binet Intelligence Scales; SB-5)
• parent able to consistently participate in parent training sessions and complete study measures

Exclusion Criteria:

• child with other severe psychiatric disorder
• child with known genetic condition (e.g., Fragile X, Retts)
• child with unstable medical condition (e.g., active seizures)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: SINGLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Social SUCCESS	Behavioral: Social SUCCESS; Social SUCCESS will run for 12 weeks, with up to 5 children with ASD per group. Parents will attend didactic group sessions focused on motivating children with ASD to initiate to peers (90 min weekly) and will attend a portion of the existing 90 min social group to practice applying these strategies with their children and peer volunteers. Parent training will utilize the manual "Improving Socialization in Individuals with Autism".
OTHER: Wait List	Behavioral: Wait List; Participants assigned to the Wait List will continue stable community treatments for 12 weeks and will be provided an intervention similar to Social SUCCESS upon completion of all post measures.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Visual Analog Scale Rating from Baseline to Week 12	Parent rating on a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) of the child's frequency of initiation will be compared between Baseline and Week 12 to evaluate change	Baseline, Week 12

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in frequency of child initiations	Based on behavioral coding of peer play videos by a blind rater using established operational definitions, change between baseline and week 12 in frequency of child initiations will be compared between groups	Baseline, Week 12
Change in parent fidelity of implementation	Changes in prompting and reinforcement of social initiations between baseline and week 12 scored from video of parent-child interaction by trained raters will be compared between groups	Baseline, Week 12
Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition	Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition, Parent Report Form	Baseline, Week 12, 3-month Follow-up
Social Skills Improvement System	Social Skills Improvement System Parent Report Form	Baseline, Week 12, 3-month Follow-up

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Grace W Gengoux, PhD, Stanford University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): August 9, 2017
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): November 12, 2021
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): November 23, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 1, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 2, 2017
• First Posted (ACTUAL): June 6, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): December 10, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 9, 2021
• Last Verified: December 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: social skills; parent training
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Autistic Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive
• Other Study ID Numbers: 41867

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No