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Social skills classes produce lasting benefits for adults with autism… or other caregivers received training on how to coach the participants outside of class. Conversation, humor and more The group classes focused on conversational skills, appropriate use of humor and electronic communication, identifying sources … in the study, the researchers propose. “Our study offers encouraging findings that, through an evidence-based, caregiver-supported intervention, adults with autism can improve in ways that may help them be more successful in these aspects of … exist for young adults on the spectrum. “It’s exciting to see a community-based treatment model using caregiver support to help improve social skills,” comments Kara Reagon, Autism Speaks associate director of dissemination science. …

Autism and ‘optimal outcomes’… to rethink what we mean by “optimal outcomes” For years, we’ve been using this term to describe a relatively small group of people with autism who, with therapy and support, experience such a marked decrease in autism symptoms that they no longer meet the criteria we use to diagnose the … re-defining “optimal outcome” as the best possible outcome based on each child’s personal characteristics and available supports . We find this as a much more suitable concept for developing autism services and setting goals for each child, …

Youth with autism gain, keep jobs after employer-based skills program… and $10.66 an hour. A year after graduation, 87 percent of the participants still had their jobs. Meanwhile, a control group of young people with autism who did not take part in the job skills program saw only 6 percent employed three months … school (greater than 75 percent), receive a combination of nine months of immersion in a business setting internship, plus supports such as applied behavior analysis, that their chances for becoming competitively employed are much better than … encouraging. The study, “ Effects of an employer-based intervention on employment outcomes for youth with significant support needs due to autism ,” was published in the April 1 edition of the journal  Autism . Wehman, a professor in the  …