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Metacognitive Executive Functioning and Its Relationship to Social Functioning in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Previous research indicates there is a negative relationship between both executive function and social communication skills (Joseph & Tager-Flusberg, 2004), as they relate to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms. As such, understanding the relationship among executive function and social communication processes may provide important information for informing intervention strategies in ASD. However, there is limited research examining the relationship between specific processes of executive function (i.e., metacognition, behavioral/emotional regulation) and other social skills.
There is recent interest in this topic. One study found that both difficulties in behavioral regulation and metacognitive executive functioning predicted deficits in social communication in children with ASD while only the relationship between behavioral regulation and social communication was significant in typically developing children. This suggests that there may be a unique link between metacognitive processes and social functioning in children with ASD (Leung, Vogan, Powell, Anagnostou, & Taylor, 2016). Another study compared metacognition to behavior regulation and found that metacognitive processes were the more important factor in accounting for social function in children with ASD (Torske, Nærland, Øie, Stenberg, & Andreassen, 2018).
This previous research on the relationships among executive functioning skills and social functioning has centered on the use of the Social Responsiveness Scale, 2nd Edition (SRS-2), a commonly used screening tool that identifies social communication difficulties relevant to autism symptomology. There is little research exploring this relationship with more comprehensive measures of social functioning, especially ones that are indicative of every day social skills. To address this, the social skills improvement system-rating scale (SSIS-RS) was selected for this study as it gathers a more global assessment of social functioning with the addition of providing guidance for intervention.
Objectives:
The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between social functioning as measured by the Social Skills Improvement System Rating Scales (SSIS-RS) and executive functioning as measured by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning (BRIEF). We predict that, based on emerging research, metacognition will have a stronger relationship with social skills than behavioral regulation.
Methods:
Fifty-three children with ASD, ages 6-12, with full scale IQ scores above 50, were assessed on parent reported measures of executive functioning (BRIEF) and social skills (SSIS-RS). A linear regression was conducted to examine the relationship between the Metacognitive and Behavioral Regulation Indexes of the BRIEF and the social skills index of the SSIS-RS.
Results:
Consistent with our hypothesis, metacognition predicted social skills (β = -0.32, p = 0.03), with greater difficulties in metacognition indicating lower social abilities. The relationship between behavior regulation and social skills was not significant (β = -0.22, p = 0.15, ns).
Conclusions:
Results support previous research suggesting that metacognition plays a larger predictive role in every day social functioning than behavioral regulation. Metacognition involves skills such as working memory, activity initiation, planning/organization, and self-monitoring, which may be improved through direct teaching. These results have implications for developing metacognitive-based interventions that could assist in the development or improvement of every day social skills in children with ASD.