Download or read book Differential Impact of Drama-based Versus Traditional Social Skills Intervention on the Brain-basis and Behavioral Expression of Social Communication Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder written by Margaret Helen Mehling and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the differential impact a traditional social skills curriculum, SkillStreaming, and a novel, drama-based social skills intervention, the Hunter Heartbeat Method (HHM), on the core social skills deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the brain-basis of these deficits. Forty children aged 8-14 years with ASD were recruited to participate in a 12-week social skills intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to receive drama-based or traditional social skills intervention once weekly. Previous research on SkillStreaming and HHM in children with ASD had reported improvement in behavioral measures of social functioning from pre- to post-intervention. Despite evidence of treatment response for both interventions, clear differences between these two types of social skills intervention exist. SkillStreaming is a highly structured, curriculum-based intervention during which specific social skills, such as making a friend or having a conversation are explicitly taught via didactic instruction, modeling, and rehearsal. Conversely, in the HHM, although core elements of modeling and repeated practice with feedback are used, there are no “skills” taught, rather, children learn drama-games that implicitly target core deficits associated with ASD (e.g., eye contact, facial emotion recognition, integration of speech and gesture). Research on drama-based interventions for children with ASD is an emerging literature; previous research has indicated that this treatment is well liked by children and, like traditional treatments, is associated with measurable improvement from pre- to post-intervention. Little is known, however, about how differences in treatment modality (didactic versus experiential) and skills taught (higher-level versus foundational) impact skill acquisition and generalization. It is possible that these key differences impact the neurological substrate of social learning, which may have downstream consequences for skill acquisition and generalization. This study aimed to address this important question by investigating not just behavioral measures of social functioning (including direct measures of pragmatic language and parent-completed rating scales), but also brain-based measures. In addition to direct child measures and parent rating scales, participants completed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans before and after treatment. During fMRI scans, participants completed a facial emotion recognition (FER) task to determine differential treatment impact on the amygdala and fusiform gyrus, key brain regions used in FER in typical development. FER is a critical social-cognitive task that is impaired in children with ASD. Results of this study indicate that participants receiving the HHM experienced significantly greater improvement in core social skills deficits associated with ASD and increased activity in the amygdala and fusiform gyrus from pre- to post-intervention, indicative of increased signaling in these critical regions mediating FER in typical development. Participants in the SkillStreaming group, however, evidenced changes in activation in the lingual gyrus and other cortical regions associated with verbally mediated problem solving. Results indicate that despite comparable improvement on behavioral measure of facial emotion recognition, the neurological underpinnings of social-cognitive gains depended on treatment modality. This is the first study of its kind and although considerably more research is needed in this area, findings offer some insight regarding social learning in ASD, which may have implications for future research and practice regarding social skills intervention in this population.