Commentary on Social Skills Training Curricula for Individuals with ASD: Social Interaction, Authenticity, and Stigma
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Abstract
By teaching social rules thought to be necessary for social competence, social skills training (SST) curricula aim to improve indicators of well-being for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such as the attainment of meaningful friendships. However, several recent meta-analyses indicate that SST curricula may fall short of these goals. We offer an explanation for these potentially null effects by illustrating how the content of these curricula diverge from empirical evidence derived from disciplines that take social interaction as their object of study. Next, we argue that employing the social rules advocated for by SST curricula may work counterproductively by inhibiting authenticity, while at the same time increasing stigma associated with ASD. We close with suggestions for future intervention research.
Keywords
Autism spectrum disorder Social skills Social-cognitive interventions Conversation analysis Authenticity StigmaNotes
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Betty Yu for her comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, and the attendees of the 2017 Working Conference on Discourse Analysis in Education for their commentary on these topics.
Author Contributions
KBB conceptualized the commentary and wrote the draft. HP and SYK conducted literature reviews, wrote portions of the draft, and edited the final manuscript.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Approval
This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. The authors received no specific funding for writing this manuscript.
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