Online a paper about a therapy for adolescents with autism and extraordinary skills. The research has been just published by the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy and presents a two cases series.
In this study we tested an evolutionarily oriented therapy for those with the so-called savant syndrome, that is the presence of extraordinary skills usually in conjunction with autistic traits. Thus, we recruited two adolescents with this syndrome and offered a 6-month therapy (plus 1-month follow-up).
The proposed therapy is an adaptation of Evolutionary Systems Therapy for Schizotypy, that is an integration of evolutionary psychopathology, metacognitively oriented therapy and compassion focused therapy. This treatment has been originally tested with persons with schizotypal o schizoid traits.
The collected results are promising. Indeed, both the adolescents showed a reliable change in symptomatology and in metacognition, that is the former decreased and the letter increased.
Future studies will hopefully confirm if and how our therapy for autism and extraordinary skills works!
Cheli, S. & Cavalletti, V. (2023). An Evolutionarily Oriented Therapy for Autistic Adolescents with Extraordinary Skills: A Two-Case Series. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10879-023-09586-7
Open -access link by Springer: https://rdcu.be/ddtxS