Social and Emotional Competencies of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or Intellectual Disability.
Children with both ASD and ID show the lowest parent-rated social-emotional competencies, so prioritize comprehensive social-skills programming for this subgroup.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Žic Ralić et al. (2025) asked parents to rate their kids' social-emotional skills. They used the DESSA-mini, a short survey that covers self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship skills.
The team compared three groups: children with autism only, intellectual disability only, and both conditions together. All kids were school age.
What they found
Parents gave similar scores to autism-only and ID-only groups. The big gap showed up in the combined group. Kids with both ASD and ID scored lowest on self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, and optimistic thinking.
In plain words, the more diagnoses, the fewer social strengths parents saw.
How this fits with other research
van Timmeren et al. (2016) surveyed over a thousand families and found the same pattern: social participation drops furthest when ASD and ID occur together. The new study adds parent-rated emotional strengths to that picture.
Mouga et al. (2015) showed that socialization adaptive scores stay low in ASD even after matching kids for IQ. Anamarija's 2025 data now extend that finding into everyday emotional competencies like optimism and self-awareness.
Laugeson et al. (2014) tracked preschoolers longitudinally and saw the ASD-plus-ID group fall further behind each year. The 2025 cross-sectional results mirror that widening gap at older ages.
Why it matters
If you serve a child with both ASD and ID, do not rely on generic social-skills goals. Target self-awareness and relationship skills directly, and check for co-occurring ID at intake so you can plan more intensive programming from day one.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with ASD and children with ID face numerous challenges in social and emotional functioning. The aim of this study is to explore differences in social and emotional competencies between children with ASD, children with ID and children with comorbid ASD/ID. Methods: Parents (N = 177) assessed the social and emotional competencies of elementary school-aged children with ASD (N = 50), children with ID (N = 84), and children with comorbid ASD/ID (N = 43) using the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA). DESSA measures 8 key social and emotional competencies. In our study, no differences in social and emotional competencies were found between children with ASD and children with ID. Children with comorbid ASD/ID did not differ from children with ASD, but compared to children with ID, parents rated their self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, and optimistic thinking as significantly lower. The results were discussed considering the type of school attended by the children, the level of intellectual disability of children with ID, and the complexity of functioning of children with ASD. All three groups of children require tailored interventions for social and emotional learning to support their functioning in daily activities at home, at school and in peer groups.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1177/0022466920926132