Inference Generation Strategy Intervention for Adults With High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (Murza et al., 2014)

Purpose The present intervention study investigated the efficacy of the ACT & Check Strategy intervention to improve inference generation when reading, metacognitive ability, general reading comprehension, and social inference ability in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD).

Method Twenty-five adults with HF-ASD were randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group. Treatment sessions were conducted in 1-hr sessions, twice a week, for a total of 6 weeks. Treatment focused on explicit instruction of components of inference generation, categories of inferences, and increasingly independent strategy use.

Results The treatment group demonstrated significantly superior performance on 1 of 2 measures of inference generation in reading and 1 measure of metacognitive ability compared with the control group. Significant differences between groups were not found on measures of reading comprehension or social inference ability.

Conclusion These findings suggest that the ACT & Check Strategy was effective in improving participants' ability to generate inferences in reading and certain metacognitive abilities, but the skills do not appear to generalize to other social communication contexts, such as social inference generation. This research provides a measure of support for explicitly teaching inference generation to address a reading inference deficit in adults with HF-ASD.

本研究为一项干预研究，旨在探讨ACT & Check策略干预对于改善高功能自闭症谱系障碍（HF-ASD）成人阅读时的推理生成、元认知能力、一般阅读理解以及社会推理能力的效果。研究方法上，将25名HF-ASD成人随机分配至治疗组或对照组。治疗组以每周两次、每次1小时的频率进行为期6周的治疗。治疗内容聚焦于推理生成成分、推理类别以及策略使用的逐步独立化。结果显示，与对照组相比，治疗组在阅读推理生成的两个指标中的一个以及元认知能力的指标上表现出显著优越的表现。然而，两组在阅读理解和社交推理能力的指标上未发现显著差异。结论表明，ACT & Check策略在提升参与者阅读推理生成能力和特定元认知能力方面效果显著，但这些技能似乎不能推广至其他社交交流情境，如社交推理生成。本研究为针对HF-ASD成人阅读推理缺陷，明确教授推理生成策略提供了实证支持。