Impaired social skills represent a fundamental deficit for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Despite the potential importance of "good sportsmanship," this social skill has received relatively little attention in the literature. The current study utilized a Behavioral Skills Training (BST) approach to teach three…

Evaluation of evidence-based treatments is important for adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) given the increasing number of interventions available and the prevalence of ASD. In this study, we sought to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral interventions for this population by conducting a meta-analysis of published…

Anxiety disorders, including social phobia, occur often in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD; Gillott, Furniss, & Walter, 2001; Leyfer et al., 2006; Simonoff et al., 2008); however, little is known about the conceptualization and treatment of social phobia in this population. The current study presents the case of "James," a 6-year-old…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have a high prevalence of specific fears, including fear of general medical procedures, but research on the treatment of medical fears has been limited. Two studies are described in this article. The first study involved an assessment of the prevalence of fears associated with physical exams.…