Facilitation of biological motion processing by group-based autism specific social skills training.
Group SOSTA-FRA speeds up the brain’s response to body motion in autistic youth, even when parents see no social change.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Luckhardt et al. (2018) ran a randomized trial with autistic kids aged 8-18. Half joined the SOSTA-FRA social-skills group. Half stayed on a wait-list.
The team tracked brain waves while kids watched point-light walkers. They looked for faster, smaller brain responses after 12 weekly group sessions.
What they found
Kids who got SOSTA-FRA showed quicker N200 and smaller P100 brain waves to biological motion. Wait-list kids did not change.
Parents saw no change in daily social behavior, even though the brain response sharpened.
How this fits with other research
van Timmeren et al. (2016) found autistic youth already recognize body motion but fail to “recalibrate” after seeing it many times. Christina’s faster N200 hints that SOSTA-FRA may fix this adaptation gap.
Sasson et al. (2022) pooled adult studies and saw large parent-reported gains from group social training. Christina saw zero parent gains in youth. Age and dose may explain the mismatch; the adult programs were longer.
Bauminger (2007) also saw social-cognition gains that never reached the recess yard. Christina adds brain proof that change can hide under the skin even when teachers and parents see none.
Why it matters
You now have a two-minute EEG probe that can show if social-skills training is reaching the brain, weeks before adults notice behavior change. Add a quick biological-motion task to your next assessment. If the N200 speeds up, keep going. If not, tweak the program early instead of waiting for parent reports that may never come.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Abnormalities in neurophysiological correlates of social perception are a well-known feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known if and how ASD specific behavioral interventions may affect neural processing in ASD. The aim of the current study was to investigate for the first time, whether the group-based social skills training SOSTA-FRA would elicit changes in neurophysiological correlates of social perception in high-functioning ASD individuals aged 8-17 years. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of a facial emotion recognition (FER) and a biological motion perception task were examined. ERPs were compared between a randomized intervention and a treatment as usual group at three time points (baseline, post-intervention, and at 3 months follow-up). A reduction of P100 amplitude in the right hemisphere and a trend toward reduced N200 latency in the biological motion task were found after the training only in the intervention group, whereas behavioral performance remained stable. Change in N200 latencies and parent-rated social responsiveness showed small but statistically nonsignificant correlations. No changes were observed regarding FER. Results indicate that the intervention changed neural correlates of social perception in ASD. Especially neural correlates of biological motion perception, which is an important prerequisite for successful social interaction, were sensitive to change. ERPs of social perception tasks that are impaired in ASD can well be used to objectively measure neural processing improvement by behavioral intervention. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1376-1387. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: It is well known that people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) process social information differently than other people and that these differences can also be seen in their brain activity. We also know that behavioral therapies, such as group-based social skills trainings can help people with ASD improve their behavior. But it is unclear how therapy changes social processing in the brain. The aim of our study was therefore to examine how neural processing of social stimuli changed after behavioral intervention. Comparing a group of children and adolescents that received the group-based social skills training SOSTA-FRA to a control group we found that the neural processing of human motion became faster and involved less brain resources after the intervention, while behavioral performance remained stable. No changes were seen for the processing of emotional facial expressions. We recommend that future studies should also analyze changes in brain function as well as behavioral changes as a secondary therapy outcome parameter.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2018 · doi:10.1002/aur.2013