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Social Attributions and Depression in Adolescents with Asperger Syndrome

Gena P. Barnhill
Focus Autism Other Dev Disabl 2001 16: 46
DOI: 10.1177/108835760101600112

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 Social Attributions and
Depression in Adolescents with
Asperger Syndrome
Gena P. Barnhill

This study investigated the relationship between level of depressive symptoms and so- the environmental demands. Szatmari de-
cial attributions in 33 adolescents with Asperger syndrome. Results revealed a signifi- scribed them as always &dquo;out of context&dquo;
cant positive relationship between depressive symptoms and ability attributions for (p. 83).
social failure, suggesting that interventions may need to focus on teaching these indi- According to Attwood (1998), &dquo;Peo-
viduals to attribute social failure to causes other than ability. In addition, it was found ple with Asperger’s syndrome perceive
that the more intelligent the individual, the less he or she attributed social success to the world differently from everyone else&dquo;
chance and task difficulty factors, and vice versa. It is hypothesized that more intelli-
(p. 9). Robinson and Trower (1988) ar-
gent participants might have developed increased cognitive awareness that more that social behavior is the most
gued
complex or multiple factors are involved in social success, rather than simply luck central and important characteristic of
or chance. Findings are discussed relative to implications for practitioners.
human beings. Given this assertion, indi-
viduals with Asperger syndrome appear
to be at a distinct disadvantage in coping

sperger syndrome is a develop- take part in reciprocal communication, with their social world. According to
mental disability marked by im- and do not seem to understand the Tantam ( 1991 ), Asperger syndrome may
~- pairments in social relationships unwritten rules of communication and cause the greatest disability in adoles-

and in verbal and nonverbal communica- conduct (Attwood, 1998; Frith, 1991; cence and young adulthood, when social

tion and by restrictive, repetitive patterns
of behavior, interests, and activities. Al-
though this syndrome was recognized in
1944 by Hans Asperger of Austria, the
American Psychiatric Association (APA)
did not recognize Asperger syndrome as
a specific pervasive developmental disor-
der until 1994. Given this recent official
recognition of Asperger syndrome, there
is a dearth of research regarding individ-
uals with this disorder. It is known that
Asperger syndrome &dquo;profoundly limits a
child’s participation in the process of
growing up&dquo; (Szatmari, 1991, p. 91). Al-
Myles & Simpson, 1998). Children and
youth with Asperger syndrome not only
are socially isolated but also demonstrate
an abnormal range or type of social in-
teraction that cannot be explained by
other factors such as shyness, short at-
tention span, aggressive behavior, or lack
of experience in a given area (Szatmari,
1991). These impairments may manifest
in different ways. For example, the child
may not show any interest in other chil-
dren, be a passive participant in other
children’s play, or interact with other
children only when play involves his or
relationships are the key to almost every
achievement. Wing (1981) noted that it
is at this time that clinically diagnosable
depression and anxiety occur, which may
be related to a painful awareness of social
differences. More recently, clinical re-
ports and research have revealed that
adolescents and adult individuals with
Asperger syndrome appear to be at risk
for depression (Ghaziuddin, Weidmer-
Mikhail, & Ghaziuddin, 1998; Tantam,
1991). Additionally, there is a genuine
risk of suicide (Wolff, 1995). Yet, this is
an understudied phenomenon in chil-

though some professionals consider As-
perger syndrome to be a milder form of
autism in terms of the apparent severity
of its symptoms, it is a highly disabling
condition (Tantam, 1991).
Individuals with Asperger syndrome
lack social skills, have a limited ability to
her own obsessive interests. These chil- dren and adolescents with developmen-
dren and youth may be very socially in- tal and learning disabilities (Hardan &
trusive or awkward, ask inappropriate Sahl, 1999; Rourke, Young, & Leenaars,
questions, come too close to others, or 1989).
remain aloof. The key problem is not that Attributional or explanatory style (the
they are socially isolated but that they causes people give for events in their
cannot change their behavior to meet lives) has been studied to understand de-

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pression and shed light on how people
process information (DeMoss, Milich, &
DeMers, 1993). Given the plethora of
research that indicates there is a corre-
lation between attributional styles and
depression in children and adolescents
(e.g., Gladstone & Kaslow, 1995), stud-
ies are needed to determine if this
relationship exists for individuals with
Asperger syndrome. It is imperative to
determine if these individuals have a so-
cial attributional style that may put them
at risk for depression. Furthermore, con-
sidering Bandura’s (1982) statement that
individuals’ beliefs about the causes of
their successes and failures mediate their
behavior by determining what action
they attempt to carry out and how much
effort they put into this performance, an
investigation of the social attributions of
individuals with Asperger syndrome may
assist in understanding their social and
motivational patterns. This information
appears to be essential for the design of
effective interventions, social skills train-
ing, and attributional retraining to sup-
port such persons in their everyday func-
tioning. In addition, preventive efforts
could then be designed and implemented
before these individuals experience an
emotional crisis.
Barnhill and Myles (2000) reported a
relationship between general attribu-
tional style, as measured by the Chil-
dren’s Attributional Style Questionnaire
(Seligman et al., 1984), and depression
in adolescents with Asperger syndrome.
However, no research published to date
specifically examines the relationship be-
tween depression and social attributional
or explanatory style in these persons.
Given that social behavior is considered
to be a central characteristic of humans
(Robinson & Trower, 1988) and is an
area of extreme difficulty for individuals
with Asperger syndrome, it is imperative
to explore their social attributions so that
appropriate interventions can be de-
signed to assist them in coping in the so-
cial world. Hence, the purpose of this
study was to investigate the relationship
between level of depressive symptoms
and social attributions in adolescents
with Asperger syndrome.
Method
Participants
The 33 participants in this study were
obtained from the Asperger syndrome
database held by the special education
department at a large midwestern uni-
versity. All participants had an official di-
agnosis of Asperger syndrome rendered
by a psychologist, psychiatrist,
cian. The 30 male and 3 female adoles-
cents ranged in age from 12 years 1
month to 17 years 7 months (M 14
6
years months; SD 1.68 years). Thirty-
=
two of the adolescents were Caucasian,
and one was African American. Their
IQs, as measured by an individually ad-
ministered intelligence test, ranged from
71 to 144, with a mean IQ of 99.19 for
32 of the participants. One adolescent
did not have an individual IQ score;
however, he was participating success-
fully in the grade-level curriculum at
school (see Table 1).
Twelve participants received counsel-
ing or psychotherapy, 2 received speech/
language services, and 4 received occu-
pational therapy services (see Table 1).
Thirty-one of the 33 participants were
being treated with anti-depressant, anti-
anxiety, anti-psychotic, or anti-manic
drugs; stimulants; or other physician-
prescribed medications for behaviors re-
lated to Asperger syndrome. Participants
reported taking one to six of these med-
ications to control their behavior (M
2.36, SD = 1.37).
Instruments
The Student Social Attribution Scale
(SSAS; Bell & McCallum, 1995), and the
Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI;
Kovacs, 1992) were administered indi-
vidually to each participant. Permission
to use the SSAS was obtained from the
authors, whereas the CDI, a standard-
ized instrument, was purchased for use in
this study. In addition, demographic in-
formation was obtained for each ado-
lescent.
Student Social Attribution Scale.
Marsh, Cairns, Relich, Barnes, and De-
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47
bus (1984) and Bell and McCallum
(1995) asserted that there were no
widely used instruments adequate as
measures of individual differences in self-
attributions, especially in the social do-
main. Therefore, Bell and McCallum
( 1995 ) developed the SSAS to measure
students’ perceptions of the causes of
their school-related social success and
failure. The most current version consists
or physi- of 16 subscales (S. M. Bell, personal
communication, January 27, 1999).
Eight of the scales result from the facto-
=
rial combination of two aspects in the
school social domain: outcome (S suc- =
cess, F =
failure) and attribution (A =
ability, E effort, C chance, and T
= = =
task difficulty). These eight factors are
Success/Ability (SA), Success/Effort
(SE), Success/Chance (SC), Success/
Task Difficulty (ST), Failure/Ability
(FA), Failure/Effort (FE), Failure/
Chance (FC), and Failure/Task Diffi-
culty (FT). The Internal/Success (IS)
subscale is calculated by adding the SA
and SE scores, and the External Success
(ES) subscale is calculated by adding the
SC and ST scores. The Internal/Failure
(IF) subscale is calculated by adding the
FA and FE scores, and the External/
Failure (EF) subscale is calculated by
adding the FC and FT scores. The
Optimism/Success (OS) subscale is cal-
culated by adding the SA, SE, and SC
scores. The Pessimism/Failure (PF) sub-
=
scale is calculated by adding the FA, FE,
and FT scores. A total Success score (S)
is calculated by adding the SA, SC, SE,
and ST scores together. Finally, a total
Failure score (F) is calculated by adding
the FA, FC, FE, and FT scores. The
questionnaire consists of 30 written sce-
narios that depict the participant experi-
encing social success or failure followed
by the four randomly ordered causes of
ability, effort, chance, and task difficulty,
from which the student has to choose
how often these causes apply to him or
her (e.g., often, sometimes, or seldom).
Alpha reliabilities reported for the 16
subscales of the newest version of the
SSAS were higher than those reported
for the 12-scenario version of the SSAS.
The most recent coefficients alpha were
48
TABLE 1
Characteristics of Participants:
Note. Raw data are presented. Percentages are in parentheses. Results under &dquo;Current treatment&dquo; do
not add to 100% because some participants received no treatments and others received more than one
treatment.
follows: SA, .84; SE, .85; SC, .87; ST,
as
.82; FA, .84; FE, .86; FC, .76; FT, .76;
S, .92; 1/S, .89; E/S, .90; F, .93; I/F,
.91; E/F, .85; O/S, .87; P/F, .92 (S. M.
Bell, personal communication, January
27, 1999). Bell and McCallum (1995)
reported that factor analysis and reliabil-
ity estimates for their shortened version
of the SSAS (12-scenario) provided evi-
dence for the reliability and construct va-
lidity of the scale.
Children’s Depression Inventory.
The CDI is a 27-item self-rated depres-
sive symptom inventory designed for
school-age children 7 to 17 years old.
The CDI’s readability is at the first-grade
level. The scale allows the child to choose
from among three alternatives that vary
in the symptom described. As a symptom
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Demographic Summary
severity measure, the CDI quantifies the
magnitude of the depressive complaints.
It also can be used as a measure of change
to determine if the severity of depressive
symptoms has changed following treat-
ment. The scale provides a total CDI
score and the following five factor scores:
Negative Mood, Interpersonal Problems,
Ineffectiveness, Anhedonia, and Neg-
ative Self-Esteem. The normative sample
was divided into two groups based on
age: younger children, ages 7 to 12, and
older children, ages 13 to 17. Separate
norms were developed for boys and girls.
Kovacs (1992) reported numerous
psychometric studies on the CDI, which
has been used extensively in clinical situ-
ations. The literature supports sufficient
temporal reliability, internal consistency,
consistent correlations with various syn-
dromes and other scales, and replicated
predictive relationships. Cronbach’s alpha
in the normative sample equaled .86, in-
dicating good internal consistency relia-
bility. Alpha coefficients for the five fac-
tors ranged from .59 to .68 and were
considered to be in the acceptable range
for short factor subscales. Alpha coeffi-
cients have been reported in various
other research samples as ranging from
.71 to .89, indicating good internal con-
sistency.
Kovacs (1992) reported that the CDI
has acceptable test-retest reliability.
However, the selection of an appropriate
test-retest interval is problematic because
the CDI reportedly measures a state
rather than a trait. A two-week test-retest
interval was suggested. The CDI is a
valid instrument in that it assesses im-
portant constructs that have strong ex-
planatory and predictive usefulness in the
characterization of depressive symptoms
in children and adolescents.
Design and Procedure
This research project was a descriptive
study designed to explore the relation-
ship between social attributions and level
of depression of adolescents with As-
perger syndrome. All of the identified ado-
lescents with Asperger syndrome from
the Asperger syndrome database held at
the special education department at a
large midwestern university were invited
to participate in the research. Written per-
mission to participate was obtained from
the parents of 33 of the 34 adolescents
invited to participate. The SSAS and CDI
were administered individually by the
researcher to each adolescent to ensure
that instructions were understood.
Results
The following research questions were
addressed:
1. Is there relationship between de-
a
pressive symptoms (total score on
the Children’s Depression Inven-
tory) and social attributions (as
measured by the Student Social
 49

Attribution Scale) in individuals ages

12 to 18 diagnosed with Asperger TABLE 2
Total CDI Scores for Participants and Interpretive Guidelines
syndrome?
2. Is there a relationship between social

attributions (as measured by the Stu-

dent Social Attribution Scale) and in-
tellectual level in individuals ages 12
to 18 diagnosed with Asperger syn-
drome ?
3. Is there a relationship between social
attributions (as measured by the Stu-
dent Social Attribution Scale) and
age in individuals ages 12 to 18 di-
agnosed with Asperger syndrome?

Research Question One

Note. CDI =
Children’s Depression Inventory. Raw data are presented. Percentages are in parentheses.
Forty-six percent of the participants with *Compared to children of similar age and gender in the CDI normative sample.
Asperger syndrome rated themselves as
having depressive symptoms that fell Four statistically significant relation- There were no significant correlations
within the average range when compared
to peers of the same gender and age in
ships were found between the SSAS fac- found between age and any of the scale
tors and participants’ IQ scores (see or factor scores on the SSAS. Therefore,
the CDI normative group, whereas 18%
Table 4). A weak negative relationship social attributions, as measured by the
rated themselves as having more depres-
sive symptoms and 36% as having fewer
( r -.384, p < .05) was found between
=
SSAS, were not found to be related to
the total Success factor (sum of Success age for adolescents with Asperger syn-
depressive symptoms than peers (see Chance, Success Ability, Success Effort, drome in this study.
Table 2). The participants’ self-reported
and Success Task) and IQ. Somewhat
scores on the SSAS fell within 1 standard

deviation of scores previously reported stronger relationships were found be-

tween the Success Task factor and IQ Discussion
by S. Bell (personal communication, Jan- (r =
-.484, p < .05) and the Success
uary 31, 1999). Chance factor and IQ ( r -.427, p <
The 16 SSAS factor scores and the
=

total CDI score were compared using the
Pearson product-moment correlation
(see Table 3). Two significant positive re-
lationships were revealed. A relationship
in the low positive range ( v~ .400, p <
=
.05). The lower the participant’s IQ, the
more likely it was that he or she attrib-
uted success to chance or task factors,
and the higher the participant’s IQ the
less likely that he or she attributed suc-
Relationship of Findings to
Prior Studies
Despite research that indicates explana-
torystyle is a stable trait (Burns & Selig-
man, 1989; Nolen-Hoeksema, Girgus, &

cess to chance or task factors. In addi- Seligman, 1986; Seligman et al., 1984),
.05) was found between the Internal tion, a close-to-moderate negative rela- other researchers have found that reattri-
Failure Factor (sum of Failure Ability and
tionship was found between the SSAS bution training is a successful interven-
Failure Effort) and the total CDI score.
External Success factor (sum of Success tion strategy with individuals who display
Similarly, a low positive correlation ( viz
=

Chance and Success Task) and IQ score a maladaptive or learned helplessness style
.398, p < .05 ) was revealed between the related to academic and social failures
Failure Ability Factor and total CDI ( r -.489, p < .05). The lower the par-
=

score.The more depressive symptoms re-
ported, the more the participants attrib-
uted social failure to their ability and to
the sum of their ability and effort.
Research Question Two
Is there a
relationship between social at-
tributions (as measured by the SSAS) and
intellectual level in individuals ages 12 to
18 diagnosed with Asperger syndrome?
ticipant’s IQ, the more he or she attrib-
uted social success to task and chance
(external factors). Likewise, the higher
the participant’s IQ, the less he or she at-
tributed social success to task and chance.
Research Question Three
Is there a relationship between social at-
tributions (as measured by the SSAS) and
age in individuals ages 12 to 18 diag-
nosed with Asperger syndrome?
(Aydin, 1988; DeRubeis & Hollon, 1995;
Dweck, 1975). Attribution retraining is
a cognitive training approach explicitly
designed to change maladaptive attribu-
tions. Attribution retraining might be con-
sidered as an intervention strategy for
individuals with Asperger syndrome.
However, given the rigidity and lack of
flexibility typical of individuals with As-
perger syndrome (Attwood, 1998), the
development of a maladaptive style in
these individuals is of significant concern.

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50
TABLE 3
Correlations Between SSAS Factor
Scales and Total CDI Score
*p < .05.
For example, it may be extremely diffi-
cult for persons with Asperger syndrome
to change their pattern of pessimistic
thinking even with intensive cognitive re-
training because of their tendency to pre-
fer routines and act in a rigid or ritualis-
tic manner.
As indicated in Table 1, 70% of the
participants were being treated with anti-
depressant medication at the time of the
study. Medication may be effective in
treating depressive symptoms for adoles-
cents with Asperger syndrome given that
only 9% of this sample scored in the
above-average range (T-scores 61-65)
and none scored in the statistically sig-
nificant range (T-score > 70) on the CDI,
which measures depressive symptoms. In
a related study, Barnhill and Myles (2000)
found that 11 of the same 33 adolescents
with Asperger syndrome demonstrated a
general attributional style for positive
events considered suggestive of a very
pessimistic, failure-prone style even
though 46% of these participants rated
their depressive symptoms within the av-
erage range and 9% in the above-average
range when compared to peers. Perhaps
a cognitive training approach combined
Downloaded from foa.sagepub.com at GEORGIAN COURT UNIV on November 30, 2014
TABLE 4
Correlations Between SSAS Factor
Scales and IQ Scores
*p < .05.
with medication would be an effective in-
tervention approach for these individuals.
Relationship Between Social
Attributions and Depression
Results indicated that the more partici-
pants attributed social failure to their
ability or to the sum of their ability and
effort, the higher was their depressive
symptoms score. Inversely, the less they
attributed social failure to their ability or
to the sum of their ability and effort, the
lower was their depressive symptoms
score. These results have implications for
attribution retraining. Lack of ability is
considered an internal, stable, and global
attribution, whereas lack of effort is con-
sidered an internal, unstable, probably
more specific, and controllable attribu-
tion (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale,
1978). Researchers (e.g., Dweck, 1975;
Tollefson, 1982; Tollefson et al., 1982)
found that when students were in-
structed to attribute academic failure to
lack of effort, a personal characteristic
they could change, rather than to ability,
which they could not change, they con-
tinued to maintain expectations for suc-
cess and persisted at the task. Inter-
ventions designed to alter their
were
believing that their personal behaviors
did not affect achievement outcomes to
believing that they could affect outcomes.
Further research is needed to determine
if this form of attribution retraining is ap-
plicable to social attributions and to in-
dividuals with Asperger syndrome.
Implications from Descriptive
Attributional Data
Descriptive data also indicated that the
mean scores obtained on the attribu-
tional measures by participants with As-
perger syndrome fell within 1 standard
deviation of the scores obtained by the
norm groups as reported by the authors
of the SSAS (S. M. Bell, personal com-
munication, January 31, 1999). This is
encouraging because it suggests that in-
terventions for normally developing
peers may be helpful for individuals with
Asperger syndrome. Despite the unique
characteristics of individuals with Asper-
ger syndrome, these results suggest that
when they are considered as a group,
they are also similar to other children and
youth on other qualities, such as attribu-
tions. No data are available to indicate
how closely Bell’s norms for fourth-
through sixth-grade students parallel the
norms for adolescents. However, consid-
ering that Asperger syndrome is a devel-
opmental disability that affects social and
emotional development, these norms
may be applicable and appropriate for
consideration with chronologically older
individuals.
Relationship Between Social
Attributions and Age and
Social Attributions and 10
Results indicated that age was not related
to social attributional style in this sample
of adolescents. It is possible that a rela-
tionship between age and attributional
style was not found in this study because
of one or more of the following:
(a) the small sample size,
(b) psychometric properties of the attri-
bution measure,

(c) possible confounding effects of
medication, or
(d) the fact that the age range of 12-1
to 17-7 was relatively small.
Another reason may be that these differ-
ences cannot be detected until later in
life, such as in young adulthood. Future
research in this area is crucial given the
clinical accounts of adults who were not
diagnosed with Asperger syndrome until
after they had made a suicide attempt and
the clinician had conducted a thorough
developmental interview that revealed an
undiagnosed developmental disability
(Tantam, 1991). Recognizing the social
attributional patterns of these individuals
might have led to interventions that
could have averted a serious crisis such as
a suicide attempt. Therefore, the sooner
educational and medical professionals
can identify the individual’s social attri-
butional style, the quicker interventions
can be implemented to assist the individ-
ual in developing a more adaptive social
attributional style.
Results revealed that IQ was nega-
tively related to overall social success at-
tributions (sum of ability, effort, chance,
and task factors) and to external factors
for success, specifically chance and task
causes. In other words, the higher the
IQ, the less the participants attributed
social success to the difficulty of the
social task and to chance factors. Con-
versely, the lower the IQ, the more they
attributed social success to the difficulty
of the social task and to chance factors.
However, a significant positive relation-
ship between internal causes for success
(ability and effort) and IQ level was not
found, which might have been expected
given the significant negative relation-
ship found between external factors and
success.
These findings may indicate that the
more intelligent the adolescent, the more
he or she recognizes that chance and task
conditions are not important factors in
determining success in social situations.
An attribution to luck or chance appears
to be a more concrete or simplistic ratio-
nale and may not require the more ab-
stract thought or social interaction that
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might be involved in ability and effort
rationales for social outcomes. Further-
more, it is possible that more intelligent
individuals with Asperger syndrome
developing that social life
an awareness
events are not just random or due to luck
but may be caused by other factors, such
as mutual interest in a shared activity.
However, it may be harder for these in-
dividuals to understand the impact of
their ability or effort on social success.
This hypothesis is based on research
indicating that persons with Asperger
syndrome experience varied degrees of
ability to empathize with others and
understand their feelings (Ozonoff,
own
Rogers, Pennington, 1991). The more
& It would seem plausible that attribu-
intelligent individuals may realize that
the external factors of chance and task
difficulty do not determine their social
success, but they may not be aware of
how their ability or effort could affect
their social success. If this is true, educa-
tors might want to teach adolescents
with Asperger syndrome that crediting
social success to an internal attribution,
such as effort, might help them feel they
have more control over life events and
can affect social outcomes.
Implications for Practitioners
It has been suggested that educators fos-
ter success situations in which students
with Asperger syndrome can demon-
strate their areas of strength while work-
ing in cooperative learning situations
with peers (Williams, 1995). For exam-
ple, during reading time an individual
who is proficient in decoding can be
placed in a cooperative learning group
where he or she will have the opportu-
nity to gain peer acceptance by classmates
viewing this skill as an asset to the group.
At the same time, the teacher can edu-
cate the classroom peers about the im-
portance of modeling appropriate social
behavior for the individual with Asperger
syndrome as well as teach them how to
positively reinforce this individual’s at-
tempts at appropriate social interaction.
The desired goal is for more peer accep-
tance and an increase in prosocial behavior
by the student with Asperger syndrome.
51
During the time the teacher is manip-
ulating the environment to foster posi-
tive social interactions, attribution retrain-
are ing may also be implemented. Research
in the area of academic attributions (e.g.,
Dweck, 1975) has demonstrated that
children with learning disabilities who
experience success-only conditions show
a deterioration in performance after fail-
ure, whereas children in attribution re-
training maintained improved their
or
performance. Adding attribution retrain-
ing to the provision of successful social
experiences may be a successful interven-
tion strategy for individuals with As-
perger syndrome.
tion retraining should involve teaching
students to change their expectations from
uncontrollability to controllability, as
Abramson and colleagues (1978) recom-
mended. Teaching students specific so-
cial skills not in their repertoires, teach-
ing them self-reinforcement skills, and
instructing them on how to find em-
ployment are examples of ways to foster
a sense of control over outcomes. More-
over, as mentioned earlier, Bandura’s
(1982) assertion that people’s attribu-
tions mediate their behavior by deter-
mining what action they take and how
much effort or persistence they exert ap-
pears to support these suggestions.
In addition, several strategies sug-
gested by Williams ( 199 5 ) directed at ad-
dressing several of the characteristics
typical of individuals with Asperger syn-
drome, such as poor concentration, in-
sistence on sameness, restricted range of
interests, social impairment, and emo-
tional vulnerability, are recommended to
assist the individual in persisting at social
tasks perceived to be difficult. For exam-
ple, providing a significant amount of
external structure and a predictable, safe
classroom environment, minimizing tran-
sitions, and avoiding surprises may help
the student be more socially appropriate
in school. Direct social skills training on
the rules that others pick up intuitively
but individuals with Asperger syndrome
do not and protecting the child from bul-
lying are intervention strategies to ad-
dress social skills impairments and foster
52
appropriate social relationships. To in-
crease the adolescent’s level of motiva-
tion and social task persistence, the teacher .
could incorporate in social skills lessons;
the individual’s perseverative interest.
Furthermore, the teacher needs to be:
aware that students with Asperger syn-
drome most often will not acknowledge;
that they are sad or depressed, because:
they are typically unaware of their feel-
ings. It is not sufficient to accept their
comments that they are okay. Therefore,
teachers must be vigilant to changes inL
behavior that may indicate depression.
such as greater levels of disorganization,
inattentiveness, and isolation, a decreased
stress threshold, excessive fatigue, crying, ,
and suicidal remarks, and report these to~
the parents and mental health profes-
sional (Williams, 1995).
All persons involved in the adoles-
cent’s life, including parents, educational
staff, and outside agency professionals,1
need to be working on the same goals
and implementing and reinforcing the.
same strategies. For example, the attribu-
tion retraining techniques implemented
by the private psychologist or social worker .
need to be reinforced by the school team
and parents. It is suggested that the
school team have a qualified professional,
such as the school psychologist or coun-
selor, take the lead in providing attribu-
tion retraining and in consulting with
any private professionals as well as the
school team and family regarding the in-
tervention strategies in order to provide
a comprehensive and consistent educa-
tional program.
Need for Further Research
Further research is needed to determine
if these findings hold true for other sam-
ples of individuals with Asperger syn-
drome. Moreover, a larger sample size
might allow for statistical analysis com-
paring boys and girls. In addition, a
larger sample might yield more individu-
als who are not on antidepressant med-
ications and thus allow for a comparison
between individuals with depression and
without depression. The degree to which
medication may have been a confound-
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.
ing variable in the present study is not
.
known. However, given the high inci-
dence of depression in adolescents with
Asperger syndrome (e.g., Ghaziuddin
. et al., 1998), it may be difficult to locate
a sufficiently large sample of individuals
.
with Asperger syndrome who are not
being treated with medication.
Indeed, a clearer understanding of de-
.
pression and how it is manifested in these
.
individuals is desperately needed. It is
, possible that children and adolescents
with Asperger syndrome are experienc-
, ing a significant unrecognized depression
, that renders them unable to think about
. others or empathize with them. This in-
ability to put oneself in another person’s
shoes has been attributed to theory of
mind deficits (Hurlburt, Happe, & Frith,
1994); however, this lack of empathy and
perspective may also be due to undiag-
. nosed depression. It is also not known
,
how the use of medication or other
,
strategies such as diet and exercise affect
depression and attributions. Further re-
search focusing on these strategies may
shed light on the relationship between
attributions and depression in individuals
with Asperger syndrome. In addition, the
.
use of self-report instruments to assess
,
depression in individuals with Asperger
syndrome needs to be investigated more
thoroughly. To date, there is no research
specifically addressing the issue of self-
report measures, and yet clinically it is re-
ported that individuals with Asperger
syndrome experience difficulty under-
standing their feelings and emotions
(Attwood, 1998). Investigating how de-
pression is manifested at different devel-
opmental ages in these individuals is an-
other area for future research endeavors.
Furthermore, future research is needed
to determine if individuals with Asperger
syndrome become depressed after real-
life negative events as opposed to hypo-
thetical events. Other researchers may
want to investigate the type of psy-
chotherapy approaches persons with As-
perger syndrome are receiving as well as
the effectiveness of these different ap-
proaches in order to determine the best
psychotherapeutic method for these in-
dividuals. Parents of 36% of the partici-
pants in this study reported that their
adolescents receiving counseling or
were
psychotherapy. However, the type of
counseling or therapy was not reported.
Future research efforts are needed to de-
termine the best combination of inter-
ventions for these individuals given the
seriousness of the depression and re-
ported suicide attempts in this popula-
tion (Ghaziuddin et al., 1998; Tantam,
1991; Wolff, 1995). Finally, research is
needed to determine the impact of attri-
bution retraining on individuals with As-
perger yndrome so that effective preven-
tive strategies can be implemented.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gena P. Barnhill, PhD, is a nationally certi-
fied school psychologist and is currently working
as a consultant for the Autism/Asperger Syn-
drome Resource Center in Kansas City, Kan-
sas, and as an adjunct professor in the Depart-
ment of Special Education at the University of
Kansas. Her current research interests include
assessment and interventions for individuals
with Asperger syndrome. She is the mother of a
24-year-old son with Asperger syndrome. Ad-
dress: Gena P. Barnhill, Autism/Asperger Syn-
drome Resource Center, University of Kansas
Medical Center, 4001 HC Miller Building,
3901 Rainbow Blvd., Kansas City, KS
66160-7335.
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