Superheroes Social Skills: A Comparison of Video Only and Full Curriculum on Social Skill Use

A substantial number of multicomponent interventions have been developed to address social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For multicomponent interventions, identifying critical elements of the intervention related to behavior change is critical and may potentially improve the social validity of interventions. Such an analysis of the Superheroes Social Skills program was conducted. Three participants with ASD and one participant without a diagnosis participated in a 4-week intervention in which three target social skills were taught. Participants were first exposed to only the video-based elements of intervention, followed by participation in the full curriculum. Results of the study indicated that exposure to video elements often resulted in limited increases in skill accuracy, but the largest increases were observed during training with the full curriculum. Limitations and future directions are discussed with respect to multicomponent interventions for individuals with ASD.