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Adolescence and Autism: a Difficult, but not Hopeless, Combination |
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From McGill University: The challenges that autistic patients face become more pronounced during adolescence, a crucial period when many kinds of social behaviours are developed and when these individuals can become more keenly aware of their relationship difficulties. A paper by Dr. Eric Fombonne, Head of the Division of Child Psychiatry at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), published in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders describes the effectiveness of social skills training groups for autistic adolescents. They wanted to address the needs of autistic adolescents who had no major delay in their language development or who were not cognitively challenged (high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome). Since then the training groups have been running twice a year for 14 sessions, each group involving seven to eight adolescents aged an average of 14.6 years. This last point proves that behaviour improvement in these patients is not solely tied to the hospital environment. The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) is a comprehensive academic health institution with an international reputation for excellence in clinical programs, research and teaching.
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