Longitudinal Follow-Up Study of Social Intervention Outcomes for Children on the Autism Spectrum.
Social skills groups in school or summer keep helping autistic children years after they end.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lopata et al. (2025) tracked autistic children who joined social skills groups at school or in summer camps.
The team checked the kids again one to four years later to see if the skills stuck.
They used a randomized design, so some kids got the groups right away while others waited.
What they found
The children kept their new social skills, emotion recognition, and lower autism feature scores years after the groups ended.
Both the school and the summer versions worked; the gains did not fade.
How this fits with other research
Menezes et al. (2021) looked at 18 school social skills studies and said "these work when peers join in." Christopher’s new data add longer follow-up to that pile.
Ding et al. (2017) showed one eight-year-old kept SSRT skills for 17 weeks. Christopher stretches that proof to years, not weeks.
Polak-Passy et al. (2024) tried dog-training in preschool and saw mixed results—some skills went up, others dropped. Christopher’s clear, lasting wins in older kids hint that age, setting, or method may explain the difference.
Why it matters
You can tell parents and teachers that social skills groups, run in real classrooms or summer camps, still pay off years later.
No need to fear quick fade-out—schedule the groups, train peer partners, and bank on durable change.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A prior randomized trial found a school social intervention yielded significantly better outcomes (social and autism features) immediately following intervention compared to typical school programming (services-as-usual [SAU]) for children on the autism spectrum. In that study, children in the SAU condition subsequently completed a summer social intervention. This study tested longer-term maintenance of effects for children who completed both interventions. A total of 103 children (ages 6-12 years) on the autism spectrum enrolled and 102 completed the initial RCT. Following the summer social intervention, 90 children from the original RCT completed the longer-term follow-up study. In addition to baseline and posttest in the initial RCT, children from both groups were tested at three follow-up points (five total testing points). At the time of first longitudinal follow-up testing, the children were 1.25-4.25 years post-intervention (ages 8-15 years). Longitudinal multilevel model analyses (and follow-up contrasts) revealed significant improvements for both groups post-intervention on measures of emotion recognition, autism features, and social skills, indicating maintenance of post-intervention improvements over the three follow-up testing points. No between-group differences were found for autism features or social skills over time; however, the school social intervention may have yielded somewhat better emotion recognition skills. Exploratory tests found that child IQ, language level, and length of time since completing the intervention did not moderate outcomes. Both social interventions yielded positive and durable longer-term improvements for children on the autism spectrum. [ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03338530; November 8, 2017; original retrospectively registered trial].
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1002/pits.21928