(PS2-56) Evaluation of a novel social skills program developed for intellectually disabled youth with high support needs in a residential treatment program

Therapeutic social groups and social skills interventions are commonly used within residential and psychiatric mental health treatment programs and are thought to be particularly important for autistic youth (Miller et al 2014) and youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Jacob et al 2022). However, there’s a lack of evidenced based programs developed for youth with high support needs (Siegel, 2018). As social intervention studies often exclude individuals with intellectual disabilities and severe challenging behaviors (Russell et al 2019), there is limited knowledge and resources for engaging such youth in these interventions (Dudley et al 2019).

In response to this knowledge gap, clinicians s at a residential treatment program in New Jersey have developed a unique program for the youth they serve with intellectual disability, severe challenging behaviors, and other co-occurring conditions (such as autism). This program was developed by consulting existing social programs and adapting them for use in their population.

The social groups were delivered in 8–10-week cycles as part of routine clinical practice, covering topics such as boundaries, whole body listening, and co-regulation. The residential treatment program focuses on offering individualized treatment plans to clients and promoting the acquisition of skills relevant for transitioning to less restrictive care environments, as such this social intervention’s aims to be inclusive and person-centered.

Clients had the opportunity to participate in the group multiple times. Pre- and post-group data was collected by staff at the residential treatment program, focusing on social goals such as sharing emotional expressions, engaging in collaborative play, and sharing enjoyment in interactions.

As part of a larger quality improvement (QI) project, this project aims to: 1) Review existing data & records from residents who participated in the social group at the residential treatment program from August 2022-July 2024; and 2) Compare client progress associated with social group participation using mixed effects linear modeling.

Results from 27 clients (13- 21 years old) suggest that, over time, this novel intervention yielded significant improvement of staff-rated clients’ distress recovery (p = 0.037), their frequency of offering greetings (p = 0.003), turn-taking (p < 0.004), and interest in the therapist (p < 0.001). Overall, this program evaluation suggests positive impacts on client’s social goals, with needs for further development to achieve more measurable improvements for other social skills. In addition, this project is limited by internal validity threats, including the lack of a comparison condition or independent, blinded raters.

These results will be shared with stakeholders from the residential program to provide directions for future work developing and implementing inclusive and affirming therapeutic social groups for their unique clinical population. We hope this QI project will suggest areas of improvement to increase client’s social skill acquisition, promote their transitions to less restrictive environments, and more broadly, help to inform the development of interventions for individuals with high support needs.