Children with Asperger's Disorder are considered to have impairments in social interaction, but to date few studies have empirically addressed this issue. This study examined the existence of social skills deficits in children with Asperger's Disorder, children with social phobia, and children with no psychological disorder. Using direct observation of social skills during role-play tasks, blinded observers rated an overall impression of social effectiveness and three specific categories of social skill: pragmatic behavior (e.g., effort to maintain conversation, latency to respond), speech and prosodic behavior (e.g., vocal inflection, voice volume), and paralinguistic conversational behaviors (e.g., facial orientation, motor movement). Children with Asperger's Disorder did not display predicted social skills deficits when compared to typically developing children. When compared to children with social phobia, children with Asperger's Disorder were rated as significantly more socially effective and were rated as more skilled on the molecular conversational behaviors that create an overall impression of social effectiveness. These results suggest that children with Asperger's Disorder display adequate social skill during brief social interactions. Furthermore, the social skills deficits present in children with social phobia are not the same deficits found in children with Asperger's Disorder. Implications of the findings are discussed.

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Recognizing emotion from facial expressions is an essential skill for effective social functioning and establishing interpersonal relationships. Asperger's Disorder (AD) and Social Phobia (SP) are two clinical populations showing impairment in social skill and perhaps emotion recognition. Objectives: The primary objectives were to determine the uniqueness of facial emotion recognition abilities between children with AD and SP relative to typically developing children (TD) and to examine the role of expression intensity in determining recognition of facial affect. Method: Fifty-seven children (19 AD, 17 SP, and 21 TD) aged 7-13 years participated in the study. Reaction times and accuracy were measured as children identified neutral faces and faces displaying anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness at two different intensity levels. Results: Mixed model ANOVAs with group and emotion type revealed that all children responded faster and more accurately to expressions of happiness, but there were no other group differences. Additional analyses indicated that intensity of the displayed emotion influenced facial affect detection ability for several basic emotions (happiness, fear, and anger). Across groups, there was no pattern of specific misidentification of emotion (e.g., children did not consistently misidentify one emotion, such as disgust, for a different emotion, such as anger.) Finally, facial affect recognition abilities were not associated with behavioral ratings of overall anxiety or social skills effectiveness in structured role play interactions. Conclusions: Distinct facial affect recognition deficits in the clinical groups emerge when the intensity of the emotion expression is considered. Implications for using behavioral assessments to delineate the relationship between facial affect recognition abilities and social functioning among clinical populations are discussed.

Perseverative conversation is a problem vocal behavior that is unique to individuals with Asperger's disorder. It is characterized by long-winded monologues revolving around circumscribed interests. The current research literature suggests that perseverative conversation may exacerbate already poor social relations, impede productivity at work and home, and lead to disruptive behavior when it is restricted. Despite the negative repercussions there is a lack of research related to the assessment and treatment of this behavior. In the field of applied behavior analysis, concurrent operants assessments have been used effectively to identify relative preference for concurrently available reinforcers. In the current study, choice assessments using concurrent operants arrangements were used to evaluate the reinforcing properties of perseverative conversation in children and adolescents with Asperger's disorder. Five participants, all with Asperger's disorder and reported difficulties with perseverative conversation, were assessed in three phases: A preference assessment for conversation topics; an assessment of preference for reinforcer dimensions; and an assessment of preference for competing dimensions. In the first phase a two-stage preference assessment separated high-preferred from less-preferred conversation topics and in the second and third phases participants were asked to make choices regarding their preference for conversation content, conversational style, and conversation duration. Phase II results suggested that participants preferred conversing about their respective circumscribed interests over neutral topics, actively conversing rather than listening, and conversing for longer duration rather than shorter duration. Phase III, which assessed relative preference for the three reinforcer dimensions, resulted in a hierarchy of preference for all but one participant. Two participants demonstrated the strongest preference for conversation content and two participants demonstrated the strongest preference for conversational style. Conversation duration was least preferred by four of the five participants. Perseverative conversation occurred at a relatively high rate across all assessment phases. The results are discussed in terms of current theoretical explanations for perseverative thinking and behavior, implications for treatment, and future research of this problem vocal behavior.

abstract: About 1 in 68 children is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). The prevalence of ASD within the population of all people with disabilities has increased, percentage changed from 1.8% to 7.1% in ten years (NCES, 2016). Music therapy, as a therapeutic intervention, has been used for children with autism since 1940s (Reschke-Hemandez, 2011). In the past 70 years' practice, music therapy research has explored the efficacy of music therapy in improving the multiple areas of functioning affected by the symptoms of autism. However, the results are varied. The objective of this study is to investigate the efficacy of music therapy on children with autism spectrum disorder using meta-analysis as the statistical analysis methodology to synthesis the research results from all the eligible studies in the field. After a comprehensive search of the literature and screening procedure, 11 studies were finally included in the meta-analysis. The results showed a medium to large effects (d = 0.73, CI [0.43-1.03]) of music therapy interventions for children with ASD. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression analysis are conducted for further exploration within the topic. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Music Therapy 2016

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