A role-play assessment tool and drama-based social skills intervention for adults with autism or related social communication difficulties

Abstract

This study adds to a small literature on social skills measures and interventions for adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or related social communication difficulties (SCD) without intellectual disability (ID). In study 1, a new multimodal assessment tool, the role-play assessment of social skills (R-PASS), was used to measure real-time application of social skills. The scores of adults with ASD/SCD were marginally lower than those of neurotypical adults, with a large effect size, suggesting that the measure can identify differences between the two groups. Therefore, the R-PASS shows potential as an objective tool to assess dynamic and naturalistic social skills. In Study 2, a pre–post single-group design study, we measured the effectiveness of a drama-based social skills intervention for seven participants who self-identified as having ASD/SCD. The R-PASS was used by external raters blind to diagnosis and intervention status to compare the performance of intervention participants to that of neurotypical adults. R-PASS scores suggested substantial improvement of social skills in the majority of participants post-intervention. Furthermore, relatives’ and participants’ perception of their social communication and self-regulation skills improved from pre- to post-intervention. These results suggest that the intervention may have helped the participants improve their social skills.