Social cognitive skills groups increase medial prefrontal cortex activity in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Social-cognitive skills groups can wake up the medial prefrontal 'social brain' and improve everyday social skills in fluent-speaking 8- to young learners with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with 40 fluent-speaking 8- to young learners with autism.
Half joined 12 weekly social-cognitive skills groups. The other half met for regular play sessions.
Before and after, every child had an fMRI scan while doing social tasks.
What they found
Kids in the skills group showed more activity in the medial prefrontal cortex after training.
The play group showed no change.
Higher mPFC activity matched better parent-rated social skills at home and school.
How this fits with other research
Ahlborn et al. (2008) ran a smaller Social Thinking program and saw big behavior gains without brain scans. Ibrahim et al. (2021) adds the missing brain evidence.
McAuliffe et al. (2017) used PEERS with teens and found parent-reported gains. The new study shows the same kind of training works for younger kids and links gains to brain change.
Zadok et al. (2024) found no overall autonomic differences in autistic youth. That seems to clash with Karim’s neural boost, but Ester looked at heart rate, not brain scans. Different measures, different answers.
Why it matters
You can tell parents that social-cognitive groups may light up the social brain and improve real-world skills. Use the same 12-week format with your elementary clients. Track parent reports to see if gains carry over.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Few studies have examined the neural mechanisms of change following social skills interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study examined the neural effects of social cognitive skills groups during functional MRI (fMRI) tasks of irony comprehension and eye gaze processing in school-aged children with ASD. Verbally fluent children (ages 8-11) were randomized to social cognitive skills groups or facilitated play comparison groups. Behavioral assessments and fMRI scans were obtained at baseline and endpoint (12 weeks). During fMRI, children completed two separate tasks to engage social cognition circuitry: comprehension of potentially ironic scenarios (n = 34) and viewing emotionally expressive faces with direct or averted gaze (n = 24). Whole-brain analyses were conducted to examine neural changes following treatment. Regression analyses were also conducted to explore the relationship between neural and behavioral changes. When comparing the two groups directly, the social cognitive skills group showed greater increases in activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), implicated in theory of mind, relative to the comparison group for both irony comprehension and gaze processing tasks. Increased mPFC activity during the irony task was associated with improvement in social functioning on the Social Responsiveness Scale across both groups. Findings indicate that social cognitive skills interventions may increase activity in regions associated with social cognition and mentalizing abilities. LAY SUMMARY: Social skills groups are a common intervention for school-aged children with ASD. However, few studies have examined the neural response to social skills groups in school-aged children with ASD. Here, we report on a study evaluating neural outcomes from an empirically supported social cognitive skills training curriculum using fMRI. This study seeks to understand the effects of targeting emotion recognition and theory of mind on the brain circuitry involved in social cognition in verbally fluent children ages 8-11. Results indicate increased neural activity in the mPFC, a region considered to be a central hub of the "social brain," in children randomized to social cognitive skills groups relative to a comparison group that received a high-quality, child-directed play approach. In addition, increased activation in the mPFC during an irony comprehension task was associated with gains in social functioning across both groups from pre- to post-treatment. This is the first fMRI study of social skills treatment outcomes following a randomized trial with an active treatment condition in school-aged children with ASD.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2021 · doi:10.1002/aur.2603