A clinician's guide to social skills groups for children and adolescents with Asperger's syndrome

Abstract

Social skills deficits are the hallmark of Asperger's Syndrome (Krasny, Williams, Provencal, & Ozonoff, 2003). Children and adolescents with Asperger's Syndrome experience great difficulty in social interactions due to their significant social skills impairments (Cragar & Horvath, 2003). The number of interventions designed to remediate these social skills deficits are increasing; to date, however, no empirically-grounded "model treatment" program has emerged. Many practitioners are attempting to help children and adolescents with Asperger's Syndrome but lack the information or resources necessary to develop "best practice" interventions for these individuals (Krasny et al., 2003). While professionals certainly recognize the impact of the marked deficits in social skills that these children and adolescents experience, remediation of these deficits continues to be a significant challenge (Attwood, 2000; Mesibov, 1984; Weiss & Harris, 2001). An empirically-grounded model treatment program is presented here to guide practitioners as they strive to effectively treat individuals with Asperger's Syndrome.