Improving Emotional Skills for Chinese Elementary Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of cognitive behavior therapy incorporated with multiple exemplar instruction on the acquisition and maintenance of five emotional skills by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The experimental design was multiple-probe across five behaviors: emotion recognition, emotion recognition in context, emotion expression, seeking help, and emotion regulation. The study was conducted in a general education elementary school in China with three Chinese children (2 girls and 1 boy, aged 7–8 years) serving as participants. Results indicated that the instruction effectively increased correct responses to all five emotional skills for all three children. The acquired skills were maintained at a high level for 2 months following the completion of instruction but some skills later decreased to a slightly lower level.