A Meta-Analysis of Safety Skill Interventions for Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Safety skills are a crucial area of instruction for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present meta-analysis of single-case studies evaluated the effectiveness of safety skill interventions for individuals with ASD. Targeted skills included abduction prevention, seeking assistance when lost, fire safety, and household safety. Eleven articles, published from 1993 to 2014, investigating safety skill interventions for young individuals with ASD were included. Tau- U , a more recent measure of effect size, was utilized in addition to an evaluation of experimental control. Medium-to-large effect sizes were demonstrated across interventions, and no differences in effectiveness were found across intervention methods or settings. Overall, safety skill interventions demonstrated promising evidence for use with individuals with ASD. Future research is needed to address the limited number of published studies in this domain and expand the evidence-base for these essential skills.