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Moderators of School Intervention Outcomes for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

A prior cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) compared outcomes for a comprehensive school intervention (schoolMAX) to typical educational programming (services-as-usual [SAU]) for 103 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability. The schoolMAX intervention was superior to SAU in improving social-cognitive understanding (emotion-recognition), social/social-communication skills, and ASD-related impairment (symptoms). In the current study, a range of demographic, clinical, and school variables were tested as potential moderators of treatment outcomes from the prior RCT. Moderation effects were not evident in demographics, child IQ, language, or ASD diagnostic symptoms, or school SES. Baseline externalizing symptoms moderated the outcome of social-cognitive understanding and adaptive skills moderated the outcome of ASD-related symptoms (no other comorbid symptoms or adaptive skills ratings moderated outcomes on the three measures). Overall, findings suggest that the main effects of treatment were, with two exceptions, unaffected by third variables.

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Funding

This research was supported by Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences Grant R324A130216. Findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Autism Research, Canisius College, Science Hall 1016C, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY, 14208, USA

    Christopher Lopata, James P Donnelly, Marcus L Thomeer, Jonathan D Rodgers, Jennifer Lodi-Smith & Adam J Booth

  2. Center for Research in Autism, Intellectual, and Other Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Martin A Volker

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  1. Christopher Lopata
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  2. James P Donnelly
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  6. Adam J Booth
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  7. Martin A Volker
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Correspondence to Christopher Lopata.

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Lopata, C., Donnelly, J.P., Thomeer, M.L. et al. Moderators of School Intervention Outcomes for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Abnorm Child Psychol 48, 1105–1114 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-020-00652-5

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