Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Youth with Asperger syndrome (AS) have severe deficits in social skills and communication, which can lead to mental health problems and difficulties in school and social environments. It is critical that we evaluate programs that purport to improving their competence in these areas. The current project aims to evaluate the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health's social skills program that is offered to 60 youth with AS in Toronto each year. This 30-week program aims to reduce the social skills deficits, anxiety and problem behaviours in youth with AS, and to train parents on how to generalize these skills to the home and school environment and improve the parent-child relationship. Information will be collected from youth, their parents, and their school teachers, using a pre-intervention and post-intervention design and valid standardized measures of social skills, behaviour, family empowerment, Asperger symptoms, and parental well-being. The evaluation will examine a) oppositionality and aggressive behaviour in youth, b) reductions in anxiety, depression, and stress in parents, c) improved social skills in youth and parent empowerment, and d) how changes in child functioning are related to changes in parent functioning. The evaluation will contribute to the use of evidence-based practices in social skills groups run at CAMH and elsewhere, determine the benefits gained by both parents and youth, identify areas for program improvement, and explicate how changes in parent functioning are related to changes in the child.