This study focused on determining whether group social skills training (SST) or cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBT) works best to treat social anxiety in psychiatric patients. Participants were psychiatric outpatients with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) diagnosis of generalized social phobia (GSP). A matching procedure was used to obtain two equivalent sa...

BACKGROUND Social skills training (SST) is a common intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) to improve their social and communication skills. Despite the fact that SSTs are often applied in clinical practice, the evidence for the effectiveness of these trainings for children with ASD is inconclusive. Moreover, long term outcome and generalization of learned skills are li...

Although social skills training (SST) is an effective approach for improving social skills for schizophrenia, the motivational deficit attenuates its efficacy. Virtual reality (VR) applications have allowed individuals with mental disabilities to enhance their motivation for rehabilitation. We compared SST using VR role-playing (SST-VR) to SST using traditional role-playing (SST-TR). This rando...

BACKGROUND d-Cycloserine (DCS) enhances extinction learning across species, but it has proven challenging to identify consistent benefit of DCS when added to therapeutic interventions. We conducted a placebo-controlled trial of DCS to potentiate social skills training in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but found substantial improvement in both the DCS and placebo groups at the conclusion of acti...

Cognitive deficits are a primary factor in the social and functional impairments characteristic of schizophrenia and an important predictor of treatment success in psychosocial rehabilitation. This study examined the association between abstract reasoning and social functioning by assessing whether learning potential on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) relates to changes in social compete...

This article describes the communication skills programme of the International Medical University, which adopts an integrated medical curriculum. The programme, implemented in February 2005, is based on a systematic framework aimed at teaching students basic interpersonal communication skills progressively and continuously throughout the pre-clinical phase.

Objective: In this study, we planned to investigate the effectiveness of life skills training on the social skills of students with intellectual disabilities. Methods: In this experimental study, with pretest and posttest design and control group, an equal number of participants was randomly assigned to experimental and control group. Life skills training were provided to experimental group (n...

Background: Addiction as a biopsychosocial problem has been dramatically increased in our country. Adverse consequences of the addiction in women have been shown to be more than men, which in turn can affect family members’ health and wellbeing. The current study examined the efficacy of stress coping skills training in addicted women referring to an outpatient centre of addiction prevention lo...

BACKGROUND Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are hyperactive and impulsive, cannot maintain attention, and have difficulties with social interactions. Medical treatment may alleviate symptoms of ADHD, but seldom solves difficulties with social interactions. Social-skills training may benefit ADHD children in their social interactions. We want to examine the effects o...