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A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Social Tools And Rules for Teens (START) Program: An Immersive Socialization Intervention for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

Adolescents with ASD face numerous personal and contextual barriers that impede the development of social motivation and core competencies, warranting the need for targeted intervention. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 40 adolescents to evaluate the merits of a multi-component socialization intervention that places emphasis on experiential learning. This investigation evaluated the impact of the 20-week START program on the social functioning of adolescents with ASD. Significant Group × Time differences between START and waitlist control groups were found across multiple measures. Secondary analyses of the entire program cohort also yielded significant improvement trends across all measures. These findings may be an important step in identifying optimal strategies to target the complex factors limiting optimal social development in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge all of the adolescents and parents that participated in this research, along with all of the undergraduate research assistants that made this project possible.

Funding

Funding for this research project was provided by the Organization for Autism Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Koegel Autism Center, Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106-9490, USA

    Ty W. Vernon, Amber R. Miller, Jordan A. Ko, Amy C. Barrett & Elizabeth S. McGarry

Authors
  1. Ty W. Vernon
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  2. Amber R. Miller
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  3. Jordan A. Ko
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  4. Amy C. Barrett
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  5. Elizabeth S. McGarry
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Contributions

TV served as principal investigator for the study; supervised the grant project coordinators; and participated in the design, implementation, and data analysis of the project.  TV and AM jointly conceptualized, developed, and pilot-tested the START intervention model. JK assisted with intervention model development, modification, and refinement. AM and JK were the grant project coordinators and trained/supervised all clinicians and research assistants; coordinated daily operations of the project; and oversaw data collection, organization, and analysis efforts. AB and EM supervised START clinicians and high school volunteers in the implementation of the intervention protocol. All authors contributed to significant portions of the manuscript drafting and revision process.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ty W. Vernon.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 103 KB)

Supplementary material 2 (DOC 28 KB)

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W. Vernon, T., R. Miller, A., A. Ko, J. et al. A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Social Tools And Rules for Teens (START) Program: An Immersive Socialization Intervention for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 892–904 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3380-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3380-1

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