Social cognition in very young autistic children: a comparative study between a classical behavioral approach and a specific occupational therapy method

Living with autism involves having difficulties in the development of social cognition with important impact on social inclusion. The evidence uphold intensive and behavioral interventions like ABA. Currently a new therapeutic... [ view full abstract ]

Living with autism involves having difficulties in the development of social cognition with important impact on social inclusion. The evidence uphold intensive and behavioral interventions like ABA. Currently a new therapeutic current more focused on social aspect raises increasingly interests in the scientific and clinical communities. Furthermore the integration of family in the rehabilitation process has been linked with positive effects. The occupational therapy's method SAS (Sviluppo Abilità Sociali, Social Skills Development) aims to develop social cognition skills. This approach is not built around to the intensity of the treatment but rather around to the pro-active implication of the family. We evaluated twenty six children with autism (2- to 4-years old) separated in two groups. The first one follow the SAS method for 45 minutes twice a week. The second one follow a classical behavioral treatment (ABA) for 9/10 hours a week. In an interval of 10 months, we proceeded three testing. The first results reveal a general progression of the children at the scale ECSP. 20 children improved their total score after the second testing. The evolution is significative for the subscale Social Interaction, t(25) = 3.2, p< .005 and for the subscale Joint Attention t(25) = 3.1, p< .005). This first results seem demonstrate that if an approach involves family on the process, it could be possible to diminish hours spent directly with autistic children maintaining the good evolvement of specific social abilities.