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Brief Report: Does Gender Matter in Intervention for ASD? Examining the Impact of the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention on Social Behavior Among Females with ASD

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Abstract

A paucity of research has been conducted to examine the effect of social skills intervention on females with ASD. Females with ASD may have more difficulty developing meaningful friendships than males, as the social climate can be more complex (Archer, Coyne, Personality and Social Psychology Review 9(3):212–230, 2005). This study examined whether treatment response among females differed from males. One hundred and seventy-seven adolescents and young adults with ASD (N = 177) participated in this study. When analyzed by group, no significant differences by gender emerged: PEERS® knowledge (TASSK/TYASSK, p = .494), direct interactions (QSQ, p = .762), or social responsiveness (SRS, p = .689; SSIS-RS, p = .482). Thus, females and males with ASD respond similarly to the PEERS® intervention.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. The term female in the present paper does not differentiate female biological sex (which refers to biological differences: chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs) versus female gender (which describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine). Though a meaningful distinction certainly exists between the constructs of gender and biological sex, sufficient research regarding these constructs as pertains to social skills intervention outcome for females with ASD was not uncovered. Consistent with existing literature on the topic (Kreiser and White 2014), research presented in the present paper includes studies that classify females both by gender and by biological sex, without distinctions made between them.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge grant support from the Autism Society of Southeastern Wisconsin (ASSEW), Marquette University, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant Nos. UL1TR001436 and KL2TR001438. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. The authors would like to thank the families for their participation in our research, as well as acknowledge the Marquette Autism Project undergraduate research team for their diligent work on this project. This paper was presented as a poster presentation at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) May 2016 conference under the title: Examining the Impact of the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention on Females with ASD. Finally, the authors wish to extend their gratitude to Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson, Psy.D., UCLA for her assistance in offering the PEERS® interventions in Wisconsin.

Author Contributions

AM conceived of the study, participated in its coordination, participated in delivery of the intervention, conducted the statistical analyses and interpretation of the data, and drafted the manuscript; HS assisted with statistical analyses and interpretation of the data and revised the manuscript; BD, KW, SP, JK, and AC participated in the delivery of the intervention and data acquisition; AH, CC, and EV participated in the delivery of the intervention; AVVH assisted in the conception, design, and coordination of the study, reviewed the statistical analyses and interpretation of the data, and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

This Project was funded by the Autism Society of Southeastern Wisconsin, Marquette University, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant Nos. UL1TR001436 and KL2TR001438. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Marquette University, PO Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI, 53233, USA

    Alana J. McVey, Hillary Schiltz, Angela Haendel, Bridget K. Dolan, Kirsten S. Willar, Sheryl Pleiss, Jeffrey S. Karst, Audrey M. Carson, Christina Caiozzo, Elisabeth Vogt & Amy Vaughan Van Hecke

  2. Children’s Hospital Colorado, 13123 E 16th Ave., Aurora, CO, 80045, USA

    Kirsten S. Willar

  3. University of Minnesota, 420 Delaware St. SE, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA

    Sheryl Pleiss

  4. Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, Milwaukee, WI, 53226, USA

    Jeffrey S. Karst

  5. Texas Children’s Hospital, 6621 Fannin St, Houston, TX, 77030, USA

    Audrey M. Carson

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  1. Alana J. McVey
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Correspondence to Alana J. McVey.

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Conflict of interest

Alana McVey, Hillary Schiltz, Angela Haendel, Bridget Dolan, Kirsten Willar, Sheryl Pleiss, Jeffrey Karst, Audrey Carson, Christina Caiozzo, Elisabeth Vogt, Amy Vaughan Van Hecke declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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McVey, A.J., Schiltz, H., Haendel, A. et al. Brief Report: Does Gender Matter in Intervention for ASD? Examining the Impact of the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention on Social Behavior Among Females with ASD. J Autism Dev Disord 47, 2282–2289 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3121-5

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