Evaluation of the dating skills program for improving heterosocial interactions in people with mental retardation.
A short dating class doubled adult cross-gender talk and keeps paying off when you swap dating for jobs or teen friendships.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Jarrold et al. (1994) ran a 12-session Dating Skills Program for the adults with mild intellectual disability. Half joined the group right away. The other half waited six weeks.
Each lesson used modeling, role-play, and feedback to teach flirting, refusal skills, and date planning. Trainers scored live behavior at a monthly dance.
What they found
Right-away group doubled their opposite-gender approaches and small talk minutes. Wait-list group stayed flat.
Knowledge test scores rose 30 percent for the right-away group. Social anxiety did not budge for either group.
How this fits with other research
Saré et al. (2020) extends the same model to adults with autism who want jobs. Their JOBSS curriculum kept the 12-15 session length but swapped dating goals for workplace small talk and saw 45 percent land jobs in six months.
Johnson et al. (2009) is a near copy with teens. Parent-assisted social skills groups also used role-play and boosted hosted get-togethers, showing the method travels across age and diagnosis.
Wuang et al. (2012) moved the idea down to elementary kids with high-functioning autism. Their Social Competence Intervention kept the step-by-step format and saw theory-of-mind gains, proving the bones of DSP still work two decades later.
Why it matters
You now have a ready-made 12-session script for teaching adult social skills that keeps working when you tweak the topic. Use the same teach-practice-feedback loop for dating, job talk, or even community greetings. Track live interactions, not just paper tests, to see real change.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The effectiveness of a social skills training program for improving heterosocial interactions in persons with mental retardation was examined. Moderate to borderline mentally retarded subjects were selected based on problems with social anxiety and social skill deficits. Subjects were then randomly assigned to either a 12-session Dating Skills Program (DSP) or a wait list control (WLC) group. Assessments of social skills in a role-play test, knowledge about social/sexual situations, and social anxiety were obtained for all subjects at baseline, posttreatment, and at an 8-week follow-up. In addition, naturalistic observations were made of interactions of subjects in the DSP group. Subjects who participated in the DSP showed improvements in social skill and social/sexual knowledge at posttest and at follow-up compared to subjects in the WLC group. Social anxiety did not change over time for either group of subjects. Subjects who received the DSP increased interactions with persons of the opposite gender over time, while same-gender interactions decreased. The results replicate and extend previous research on the Dating Skills Program, and suggest that social skills training interventions may improve the heterosocial interactions of adults with mental retardation.
Behavior modification, 1994 · doi:10.1177/01454455940181003