Promoting Resilience in Teens With ASD

"The intervention includes five components: 1. An introduction to the brain, including a lesson on the concept of neuroplasticity, describing how and why our behaviors are controlled by thoughts and feelings in their brains, which have potential for change; 2. Written testimonials from older youths who describe their beliefs that people's personal traits (e.g., sadness, anxiety) are malleable, given the brain's plasticity; 3. Additional vignettes written by older youths, describing times when they used growth mindsets to persevere through social and emotional setbacks; 4. A summary of selected scientific studies suggesting that personality can, and often does, change in positive ways over time; and 5. An exercise in which the participants write notes to younger students, drawing on scientific information to describe the malleability of people's personal traits (i.e., a self-persuasion exercise)."

The ST SSI is designed to control for nonspecific aspects of intervention, including engagement in a computer program. It includes the same number of reading and writing activities as the web-based growth mindset intervention; it also mirrors the web-based growth mindset intervention as closely as possible, including vignettes written by older youths who describe times when they benefited from sharing their feelings with friends or family.