A Single-case Study Of Application Of Peer Intervention Combined With Sports Games To Improve Social Skills Of Children With Autism

Social interaction is the main way of information exchange between members of society.However,most children with autism suffer from social skills deficits.Besides,these children are passive in social interaction activities and are not good at establishing positive and long-lasting social relationships with others.In numerous empirical studies on improving the social skills of autistic children,researchers have identified a number of approaches which can strengthen the ability of the social interaction of autistic children effectively,such as peer-mediated intervention,video modeling,social storytelling,music therapy,play therapy and so on.However,most available empirical studies prefer single-approach interventions,and a small number of empirical studies combining two interventions have demonstrated that combining two or more interventions is more effective in enhancing the social interaction of autistic children.Therefore,in this study,the researcher combined peer-mediated intervention and sports games to enhance the ability of social interaction of two autistic children.By examining the scores of two participants’ social tendency ability,social cognitive ability,social communication ability,social participation and self-regulation ability,the effectiveness of peer intervention combined with sports games on improving the social ability of autistic children was verified.The study used a single-case research design,in which two autistic children who learn in a special school involved.And social skills training based on peer-mediated intervention combined with physical games was conducted for both subjects respectively.Two participants received 24 interventions during the study,with a single intervention lasting about 35 minutes.At the same time,the researchers used the social skills assessment scale of autistic children to evaluate the two participants40 times respectively,and obtained relevant data on the changes in the social skills of the two participants.In the data analysis stage,the researcher used visual analysis and C statistical analysis to certify the effectiveness of the intervention based on peer-mediated intervention combined with sports games for improving social skills in autistic children.The results demonstrated that(1)the intervention of social skills based on peer-mediated intervention combined with sports games had significant immediate and sustaining effects on enhancing the social skills of subjects with autism;(2)social skills training based on peer-mediated intervention combined with sports games had significant immediate effects on enhancing the social tendency,social cognition,social communication,social participation,and self-regulation skills of subjects with autism;(3)The subjects who received peer-mediated intervention combined with sports game training had good social evaluation of their social skills performance.The study suggests that,firstly,in the social skills training of peer-mediated intervention combined with sports games,peers should be carefully selected,and various subjective and objective factors should be taken into account when specifying the selection criteria;secondly,social skills training for autistic children should be combined with good home-school cooperation,and parents should be trained at the same time as peer-mediated intervention combined with sports games training in schools,which in order to achieve reinforcement in the family environment.