Effectiveness of Social Skills Training on Social Anxiety Disorder in Students with Learning Disabilities

Background: Children with learning disabilities (LDs) may be at risk of social anxiety because they are less socially accepted and more anxious than their peers. Approximately 70% of students with LDs experience a high level of anxiety symptoms, and they have clinical symptoms of anxiety more than their peers. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of social skills training on social anxiety disorder in students with LDs. Methods: This randomized controlled trial study included a pretest-posttest control group. Data were collected using Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (SCID-5), Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS), and Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY). In total, 30 participants with diagnosed LDs and high social anxiety were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. The intervention group received a social skills treatment over 12 sessions of 90 minutes. After collecting the data, SPSS version 24 was used with 95% CI for data analysis. The Levene test was used to assess the equality of variances, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) employed to assess the main effect of social skills intervention. Results: The results of the ANCOVA test showed that social skills training reduced social anxiety in the intervention group (P < 0.01). The covariate (pretest of anxiety) was also significant (P < 0.01). Conclusions: This study showed that social skills training could reduce social anxiety in children with LDs. This result can be a guideline for clinicians to provide the appropriate intervention for the emotional problems of students with LDs.

Development and Application of Metaverse based Social Skills Training Program for children with autism spectrum disorder to improve social interaction ability: Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by abnormalities in social communication and limited and repetitive patterns of behavior. Children with autism spectrum disorder, who lack social communication skills, will eventually not interact with others and lack peer relationships compared to ordinary people. Thus, it is necessary to develop a program to improve social communication ability using digital technology for people with ASD. OBJECTIVE To develop and application a metaverse based child social skill training program. The program is to improve the social interaction ability of child with ASD in aged 7 to 12 years. To compare and analyze the biometric information collected through wearable device when applying the Metaverse based social skills training program to check the emotional changes of ASD children in stressful situations. METHODS This parallel randomized controlled study will be conducted on children aged 7 to 12 years who have been diagnosed with ASD. A metaverse-based social skills training program using digital technology will be administer to children, who voluntarily wished to participate in research and who obtained consent from their legal guardians. Treatment group will participate in the metaverse-based social skills training program developed by this research team once a week for 60 minutes per session for 4weeks. Control group will not intervene for the duration of the experiment. Treatment group will use wearable devices during the experiment to enable the collection of biometric information in real time. RESULTS The study is expected to recruit and enroll participants in November 2021. After registering the participants, the study will be conducted from January 2022 to April 2022. This research will be conducted jointly by Yonsei University and Dobrain Co., Ltd. Children participating in the program will use the online platform. CONCLUSIONS The metaverse-based PEERS program will also be effective in improving the social skills of children with ASD, similar to the offline PEERS program. The metaverse-based PEERS program offers excellent accessibility and low cost because it can be administered at home, and thus it is expected to be effective for many children with ASD. If a method can be applied to detect children's emotional changes early on by using biometric information collected through wearable devices, then the emotional changes like anxiety and anger can be alleviated in advance, reducing issues in children with ASD. CLINICALTRIAL Clinical Research Information Service KCT0006859; https://cris.nih.go.kr/cris/search/detailSearch.do?search_lang=E&search_page=M&pageSize=10&page=undefined&seq=20942&status=5&seq_group=20942

Acceptability of Virtual Characters as a Social Skills Trainer: Usability Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Social skills training by human trainers is a well-established method to obtain appropriate social interaction skills and strengthen social self-efficacy. Our previous works automated social skills training by developing a virtual agent that teaches social skills through interaction. This study attempts to investigate the effect of virtual agent design on automated social skills training. However previous works have not investigated virtual agent design for virtual social skills trainers. OBJECTIVE The three main purposes of this research are summarized: to investigate virtual agent appearance for automated SST, to investigate the relationship between acceptability and other measures (likeability, acceptability, realism, and familiarity), and to investigate the relationship between likeability and an individual’s characteristics (gender, age, and autistic traits). METHODS We prepared images and videos of a virtual agent, and 1,218 crowdsourced workers rated the virtual agents through a questionnaire. In designing personalized virtual agents, we investigated the acceptability, likeability, and other impressions of the virtual agents and their relationship to the individuals’ characteristics. RESULTS As a result, we found the difference between the virtual agents in all measures (P < 0.001). A female anime-type virtual agent was rated as the most likeable. We also confirmed that participants’ gender, age, and autistic traits are related to the ratings. CONCLUSIONS We confirmed the effect of virtual agent design on automated social skills training. Our findings are important in designing the appearance of an agent for use in personalized automated social skills training.

Cooperation Mode of Higher Vocational Medical Facial Make-up based on Job Demand Analysis Theory

Training center can carry out beauty, body building, make-up and other contents, and the demand for professional talents dispatched by enterprises is gradually increasing. Therefore, it is imperative to strengthen the training of professional talents. Most of the professional training modes in schools adopt theoretical teaching, while the teachers in schools are responsible for the theoretical content and curriculum arrangement of students, which gives full play to the knowledge learning in higher vocational colleges, but neglects the training of students' professional skills, and the trained talents do not have the functions of social skills training and social service, which embodies the purpose of School-enterprise cooperation. Therefore, this paper analyzes the necessity and advantages of School-enterprise cooperation for medical beauty technology specialty, and puts forward several corresponding cooperation modes and teaching practice strategies. personnel training.

A Day at School : A Serious Game for Social Skills Training

Soft skills are the personal characteristics of an individual that enhance his/her interactions, career prospects, and job performance. Soft skills include social skills which incorporate characteristics like empathy, self-control, socialization, and friendliness. The development of soft skills at an early age is vital. Currently, there are few serious games for social skills training aimed at primary school pupils. A serious game does not only provide fun but a player can discover knowledge about himself. This paper presents a serious game named “A Day at School” that helps primary school pupils to develop social skills through an educational scenario. In this scenario, the hero of the game faces various situations during a usual day at school. The scenario deals with the situations of bullying, racism, and social awareness of children. By using the educational application, pupils discover appropriate behavior and get the first stimulus for acquiring their social skills. The serious game helps them to socialize and gain the basis to cultivate empathy, friendliness, and self-control. Primary school pupils and teachers evaluated the serious game. The results showed that teachers found that the game is suitable for teaching purposes and its graphical user interface (GUI) is appealing.