Youth Social Skills Treatment Study

Our study involves behavioral and neuroimaging assessments of autistic adolescents and young adults, ages 12-21. Selected participants will be invited to undergo the caregiver-assisted PEERS®16-week social skills training. The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) is world-renowned for providing evidence-based social skills treatment to preschoolers, adolescents, and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, depression, and other socio-emotional problems. All participants will be paid for involvement in assessments and brain scans. Our study is currently funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

• Autistic adolescents and young adults (ages 12-21), with fluent verbal language

As part of the study, youth will lie down in a non-invasive brain scanner (MRI) for about one hour, as well as complete some measurements of their response to social measures outside of the scanner. This initial visit will last between 3 – 3.5 hours. After this initial visit, we will schedule a follow-up visit to complete an MRI scan. After these visits, your child will undergo a 14-week parent or caregiver assisted social skills group intervention (PEERS) at Loma Linda University (LLU) at no cost to your family. The intervention will usually occur Monday evenings after school hours (4:30pm – 6pm or 5pm – 6:30pm) in a group setting. This would require you and your child to attend our lab at LLU in-person once a week for 1.5 hours to participate in the social skills training. After completion of the 14-week intervention, your child will undergo an additional visit to lie down in a non-invasive brain scanner (MRI) once again for about one hour, as well as some measurement of their response to social measures outside the scanner to assess for post-intervention changes in social cognition. This visit will be between 3-4 hours. Compensation will be given at the initial and follow-up visit, and at the post-intervention visit at a rate of $25 per hour.

It is our hope that information from this study will teach us what is different in the brains of youth with social cognition difficulties due to autism versus psychosis, how treatment affects brain networks, and to help evaluate ongoing treatment strategies in hopes of making improvements to treatment outcome based on this knowledge.