An examination of the relationship between autism spectrum disorder, intellectual functioning, and social skills in children

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are the focus of a vast amount of research due to their recent rise in prevalence. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of research looking at how ASD and IQ scores impact social skills. The present study aimed to extend the literature in this area by evaluating how ASD and IQ scores are related to ratings on a measure of appropriate and inappropriate social skills. Two groups of individuals participated: children without ASD and children with ASD. Two dependent measures of social skills (adaptive/appropriate social skills and hostile/inappropriately assertive social skills) were obtained using the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills for Youngsters-II (MESSY-II). Correlational and multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the interrelationships between the variables. ASD diagnosis significantly predicted both adaptive/appropriate and hostile/inappropriate social skills. It was negatively and significantly correlated with adaptive/appropriate social skills, indicating that children with ASD tended to have lower scores on the measure of adaptive/appropriate social skills. ASD diagnosis was also positively and significantly correlated with hostile/inappropriate social skills, indicating that children with ASD tended to have higher scores on the measure of hostile/inappropriate social skills. IQ scores were positively and significantly correlated with adaptive/appropriate social skills, indicating that children with higher IQ scores tended to have higher scores on the measure of adaptive/appropriate social skills. The implications of these findings in the context of other research on IQ, ASD, and social skills in children are discussed.