Data: Fostering Socio-Emotional Competencies in Children with Autism using a Parent-Assisted Serious Game: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

The data set refers to a multicenter randomized controlled trial that was conducted to test the effectiveness of the parent-assisted serious game "Zirkus Empathico" against an active control group. Eighty-two children aged 5-10 years with ASC were assessed at baseline, after six weeks of treatment, and three-month follow-up. Parent-rated empathy (GEM) and emotion recognition skills (KERMIT) were defined as the primary outcomes. The secondary outcomes included measures of distant emotion recognition (EKMAN), emotional awareness (LEAS-C), emotion regulation (ERC ER; N/L), autism social symptomatology (SRS parent/teacher rating), and subjective therapy goals (GAS). Data from all randomized participants was used for primary and secondary analyses according to the intention-to-treat principle. The training effects were estimated using path analyses with maximum likelihood estimation and robust ‘Huber-White’ standard errors (MLR). We specified three different path models to test our hypotheses. Please see the provided R scripts for a detailed description of the analyses. All the analyses were conducted using the RStudio software version 1.3.1073 (RStudio Team, 2015).