| Description |
Despite the burgeoning interest in mindfulness and its applications, relatively few mindfulness research studies have been conducted with children and adolescents, particularly in regard to those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and comorbid internalizing symptoms. Moreover, there is a lack of peer-reviewed, published studies regarding the effectiveness of the Mindful Schools curricula. Therefore, the current study evaluated implementation feasibility and effectiveness of an adapted Mindful Schools intervention taught to adolescents with ASD in an outpatient clinical setting. In total, 14 adolescents from the Intermountain West consented to participation in the study. A single-subject, multiple-baseline design across three groups was used to assess intervention feasibility and effectiveness. Dependent variables included: participant retention and group completion; treatment integrity; intervention acceptability; and adolescent anxiety, rigidity, and mindfulness, as measured by both self- and parent-reports. Results showed that it is feasible to implement the adapted Mindful Schools intervention with adolescents diagnosed with ASD in an outpatient clinical setting over a nine-week period. This is evidenced by a high rate of participant group completion, strong group leader adherence to the treatment protocol, and favorable satisfaction ratings from both adolescents and parents. Ratings on pre- and posttreatment measures, however, showed minimal impact on adolescent anxiety, rigidity, and mindfulness following the nine-week intervention. Specifically, Tau-U calculations showed limited to no overall intervention effect (Tau-U = -.09) on daily ratings of anxiety, despite all adolescents self-reporting symptoms of anxiety prior to intervention. Responses to the study-developed rigidity rating scale indicated that six out of 10 adolescents and parents observed a slight decrease in adolescent rigidity following intervention, although responses were highly variable both within and across groups. Finally, after eliminating an outlier, results showed little change, on average, in personal mindfulness following intervention, despite reports of practicing mindfulness. This study demonstrated that it is feasible to deliver an adapted mindfulness intervention to adolescents with ASD; however, effects on anxiety, rigidity, and mindfulness were minimal following the nine-week intervention. Future studies should aim to identify factors that impact response to mindfulness-based treatment for adolescents with ASD, as well as the development of sensitive and specific research measures. |
