Sarah Johnson Mueller and Dr. Martin Fujiki, Audiology and Speech Language Pathology

In this pilot study, I investigated the efficacy of an experimental social skills intervention program for children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). As there is a limited amount of research related to the treatment of the social skills of these children, it was my hope that such a pilot study would supply important information for future research in this area. For my research, I evaluated whether a specialized social skills intervention program produced improved social interactions in 4 children with SLI. To do this, I studied the behavioral changes of children in both a traditional language intervention group and a social skills training group. Observing any differences between these two groups, I then analyzed whether further implementation of the specialized intervention should be done in the larger population and whether there were aspects of the study which could be improved so that results could be more reliable and intervention could be more effective.

The results of my research were inconclusive. One subject in each intervention group showed a clear improvement in social skills, while one subject in each group improved only slightly or remained the same. In the social skills intervention group, one subject jumped from being involved in social interactions 44% of the time she was on the playground to interacting 77% of the time. The other subject in the social skills intervention group, however, interacted 54% of the time both before and after intervention. In the traditional language intervention group, one subject improved slightly, increasing in interactions from 54% to 56% of the time, while the other subject increased her number of social interactions from 75% to 99% of the time. Such results were frustrating because they did not leave me with any definitive conclusion. I had hoped that patterns would be such that I could say, “Yes, social skills treatment seems to improve social skills of children with SLI,” or “No, social skills treatment does not seem to improve the social skills of children with SLI.” Instead, the only safe conclusion I can draw is that results are inconclusive and therefore, more research should be done to determine if social skills treatment is a useful tool for children with SLI.

After hours of observation, analysis, calculations, and conclusions, my initial reaction to such a final conclusion was disappointment. I had hoped for something that would make me feel that I had made a worthwhile, though small, contribution to my field. Through further analysis of my research, however, I discovered that my pilot study revealed some important things.

For my pilot study, and other related projects, a coding system had been created to categorize the behavior of children on the playground as aggressive, withdrawn, victimized, or sociable. In each of these categories, there were subcategories of specific behaviors. Of course, such a system inevitably has its limitations. Sometimes a child was engaged in an activity that was coded as social behavior, even when s/he wasn’t really being social, while on other occasions, the coding system didn’t give a child credit for remarkable social strides. These factors led me to believe that refining the coding system would make future research more accurate. My discoveries about the flaws of the coding system could be useful in improving this system for future use.

In addition, I pinpointed some of the difficulties that arise from having such a disparate subject pool for such a small study. Disparity in the age of the subjects, ranging from 6 to nearly 11, their initial amounts of withdrawn behavior, and the nature of their play all may have played a role in generating such inconclusive results. Finding subjects with more similarities in age, initial social conditions, and preferences in play might help to produce more reliable results as in future studies. I also noted that the amount of data available for the study was quite limited. With video footage of only three or four recesses per child, one recess of abnormally withdrawn or sociable behavior had a dramatic impact on the final analysis. More recorded recesses would improve the reliability of future studies.

These discoveries, among others, led me to realize the value of my pilot study. While I had not answered the immediate question, my experience allowed me to formulate suggestions that could make future research in this area more effective, reliable, and decisive. My research was a valuable experience in teaching me about the research process. Research, especially involving human beings, is usually not a matter of doing one study and finding a conclusive answer. It requires doing a study, interpreting the results, making adjustments, and doing the study again. It is a refining process, not to be accomplished in a single pilot study, or large scale study, for that matter. It requires much time and effort to answer even a basic question like mine–whether one particular social skills treatment method was effective enough in a few children to warrant large scale research with more children. These most basic questions are the stepping stones to larger studies, to more definitive results, to more widespread application, and finally to the acceptance of a form of treatment that will improve the quality of life for children with specific language impairment who struggle with inadequate social skills.