RCT of a Psychosocial Treatment for Children with High-Functioning ASD: Supplemental Analyses of Treatment Effects on Facial Emotion Encoding

• Published in: Journal of developmental and physical disabilities Vol. 27; no. 2; pp. 207 - 221
• Main Authors: Rodgers, Jonathan D., Thomeer, Marcus L., Lopata, Christopher, Volker, Martin A., Lee, Gloria K., McDonald, Christin A., Smith, Rachael A., Biscotto, Alyssa A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.04.2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Autistic children; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Child and School Psychology; Children with disabilities; Control Groups; Emotions; Encoding; Facial expressions; High functioning; Original Article; Pediatrics; Photography; Pretests Posttests; Psychology; Psychosocial factors; Psychosocial intervention; Psychosocial therapy; Public Health; Social skills; Special education; Emotion encoding; Social skills training; High-functioning autism spectrum disorder; Comprehensive psychosocial intervention
• ISSN: 1056-263X; 1573-3580
• DOI: 10.1007/s10882-014-9409-x

This study evaluated the effect of a comprehensive psychosocial intervention on supplemental measures of facial emotion encoding for children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) who were enrolled in prior randomized trials. A total of 60 children, ages 7 to 12 years were randomly assigned to treatment or wait-list control groups. Photographs of six posed facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, and disgusted) taken at pretest and posttest were rated for encoding accuracy by naïve raters. Ratings consisted of a) the extent to which the facial expression reflected each of the six possible emotions (extent rating) and b) a selection of the one emotion the raters identified as being portrayed (forced-choice). Results indicated significantly better encoding of sad at posttest for the treatment group on the extent ( d  = .58) and forced-choice ( d  = .56) ratings. Between-groups differences in encoding of the other emotions at posttest were non-significant. Implications for intervention and future research are presented.