Validation of a novel measurement battery of relationship and safety skills for adults with and without autism spectrum disorder

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In this study, we seek to improve assessment of critical safety and relationship skill domains by developing and validating a novel measurement battery. Sensitive and objective tools that assess these domains are extremely limited. This lack of established measurement tools poses a critical challenge to studies of the efficacy and effectiveness of important safety interventions and relationship skill protocols, especially for populations uniquely vulnerable to negative outcomes, such as adults on the autism spectrum (AA). The financial, emotional, and physical costs of failing to adequately prepare individuals to navigate relationships safely and effectively has been demonstrated across many diagnoses. Effectively measuring related behaviors—such as navigating public/private boundaries, recognizing when others are interested in a relationship, determining the trustworthiness of potential partners, judging situations for safety, using indirect communication, and taking the perspective of others—is a critical task needed to accurately characterize the challenges of AA and other adults with social difficulties and to track progress both over time and in response to adult social skills interventions. We propose a battery of performance-based tools that target these skill domains via behavioral, eye tracking, and psychophysiological responses to social information. The strength of this battery is the objectivity of the chosen tools (e.g., behavioral responses, tracking eye movements, and heart rate) and their ecological validity (i.e., mimicking everyday experiences such as using the internet, navigating dating apps, and engaging in various types of relationships). The total length of the proposed project is three years. The measurement battery will be presented at two time points (3 months apart) to a total of 200 adults (100 AA, 100 adults without autism). We have three aims: (1) To examine the feasibility of acquisition of the proposed measures for AA; (2) To assess the utility of the measurement battery for assessing social difficulties of the AA and non-ASD groups, and (3) To validate the measures for use in clinical trials by examining (3a) their short term stability, (3b) convergent validity with a measure of general social functioning, and (3c) demonstrate their utility as measures of target engagement by confirming their correlation to outcome measures of romantic and sexual functioning. Achieving these aims will provide a novel toolkit for investigators to use to measure social cognitive, behavioral, and physiological changes in response to intervention programs for AA and, ultimately, populations with similar safety and relationship skills deficits (e.g., intellectual disability, ADHD, social anxiety, schizophrenia).