Attribution Retraining
As A Means For Improving
Social Skills
Sherry A. Moyer
York, Pennsylvania, USA
The National Autistic Society 2005 International Conference
What Is Attribution?
Attribution is our ability to accurately
assign causation or motivation to another
person’s thoughts, words, or deeds.
A Quick History Lesson
The attributional theory of achievement
motivation was pioneered by Weiner et al.,(1971)
to explain the link between children’s causal
ascriptions for achievement outcomes and their
behavioral responses to academic success and
failure. Years of research have concluded that
attributions are related to motivation and affect
performance (Weiner, 1986).
How About Attribution
Retraining?
Very simply, attribution
retraining is a cognitive approach
that attempts to redirect or correct
maladaptive attribution styles.
Why Is This Important?

It is reasonable to suggest that if a person does not
correctly attribute someone else’s thoughts, words, or
deeds, on a regular basis that it may cause frequent
misunderstandings during social interactions.

Control over our own experiences is how we achieve
successful self-determination and our self-worth is
maintained by our ability to manipulate our
attributional beliefs about the sources and causes of
success and failure (Covington, 1985).
Without Interventions
If left untreated, it could cause that person to become
defensive over time in an effort to avoid unpleasant
interactions. These aggressive or hostile attribution patterns
can be maladaptive when considering the potential for future
behavior changes (Baumeister, 1989, Weiner, 1986). These
types of attributions can also lend itself to the development
of clinical depression as proposed in the reformulated
Learned Helplessness Theory (Metalsky, Abramson,
Seligman, Semmel, & Peterson, 1982).
Where Does it Fit
Into the Autism World?
SHARED ATTENTION MECHANISM!
The primary function of the shared attention
mechanism is to provide a drive toward
establishing what is a shared interest between
yourself and another person. It is a way to get on
the same “wave length” with each other.
(Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness, pg. 66, The MIT Press, 1997)
More About SAM

These “wave lengths” are actually inferred mental states
or the “why” of the situation not the “when” or the
“where.”

All available evidence points to a massive impairment in
SAM in most children with Autism (Baron-Cohen,
Mindblindness, pg. 66, The MIT Press, 1997).
What Are Mental States?
Wishing
Guessing
Thinking
Needing
Wanting
Intention
Planning
Hoping
“Attribution of mental states is to humans what echolocation is to bats. It is our
natural way of understanding the social environment.” (Sperber, 1993, Baron-Cohen,
Mindblindness, pg. 4, The MIT Press, 1997)
More Links Between Attribution
Retraining and Asperger Syndrome
One study shows that a third of adolescents with Asperger
Syndrome have pessimistic, maladaptive attribution styles,
(Barnhill & Myles, 2000).
Research proves that maintenance and generalization of social
skills learned cannot be demonstrated adequately. (DuPaul and
Eckert, 1994, Gresham 1985, Schneider, 1992.)
It has been suggested that attribution retraining may be a
promising link to improved generalization (Carlyon, 1997).
And Just A Couple More Things!
Children who exhibit an emotional arousal response
that interferes with the use of social skills or interferes
with the use of already acquired social skills further
complicate the implications for intervention (Gresham
and Elliott, 1984)
We know that 70% of children with Asperger
Syndrome exhibit difficulty with modulating sensory
input relating to emotional responses (Dunn, 1999).
So…
We need to teach techniques for
self-regulation of these responses while we
are retraining the attribution patterns in
order to gain optimal results.
The First Step To
Social Problem Solving
In programs with 8-10 year olds and teens ages 1417, we began by using Weiner’s (1986) terminology
for classifying the dimensions of attribution:
1.
Is the issue internal or external in locus?
Did it happen because of something about you or something else?
3.
Is the issue stable or unstable?
Is it something you think will always happen?
5.
Is it controllable or uncontrollable?
Is it something you can do anything about?
The Locus of Causality
another person’s response
self-control
emotions
Internal
effort
thoughts
intelligence
temperament
weather
temperature
External
difficulty of task
popularity
volume of noise
in a room
Conclusion: Some things are naturally part of us, some things are not.
Stability
temperature
intelligence
emotions
weather
Stable
temperament
effort
another person’s
response
Unstable
self-control
thoughts
difficulty of task
popularity
volume of noise
in a room
Conclusion: Not many things will ALWAYS stay the same.
Controllability
temperature
intelligence
popularity
thoughts
effort
emotions
Controllable
temperament
self-control
weather
volume of noise
in a room
Uncontrollable
another person’s
response
difficulty of
task
Conclusion: We may have control over more things than we think!
Real Life Situations

Start with discussion of concrete or explicit issues
and move toward more abstract or implicit
concepts.

Discuss the situation in terms of the three
dimensions of attribution

Have the child attribute both the situation and the
responses to it.
For Example…
Situation:
You are sitting in a restaurant and there is a
screaming baby at the table next to you!
4.
5.
6.
Is this situation internal or external to you?
Is it a stable or unstable situation?
Is it a controllable or uncontrollable situation?
Don’t Forget Self-Regulation!
We combine the attribution retraining for social
problem solving with self-regulation techniques
using The Incredible 5-Point Scale by Kari Dunn
Buron and Mitzi Curtis (AAPC, 2003).
A Quick Explanation…


The Incredible 5-Point Scale allows children to
identify certain life situations of daily living
skills that may be challenging and then rate their
degree of difficulty on a scale of 1-5.
Once that is complete, the next step is for the
individual to identify possible responses for
each of the issues that are commensurate with
the rating given for the degree of challenge that
is associate with the issue.
A Sample 5-Point Scale
Situation
My Response
1
Bumped in hallway at
school by a friend
Call them a bad name
Ignore it or say
“excuse me.”
2
Hit bare toe on a door
frame
Slam door, yell
Rub my foot, get ice, ask
Mom for help
3
Missed school bus, late
for school
Cry, throw books on the
ground, blame Mom
Wake up earlier, watch
clock closely in the
morning
4
Ask a girl on a date and
she turns you down
Become depressed, think
you are stupid, get angry at
the girl
Try to understand her
reason, hide in room all
weekend
Get fired from first job
Scream at the boss, hate
yourself, give up trying to
work
Understand what
happened, improve work
habits, find another job
5
More Positive
Response
But Wait !!!

The rule is that you are not allowed to go through
the problem solving step until you can identify
yourself at a level 2 or lower. At higher than a level
2 situation, you are too upset to problem solve
successfully so you must calm down first.
What It Looks Like
When We Are Upset
NO
PROBLEM
SOLVING
HERE!
Problem Makers
Problem Solvers
When We Are Calm
NO
PROBLEM
SOLVING
HERE!
Problem Makers
Problem Solvers
One Last Step
For Younger Children
When the problem solving has occurred,
younger children may need a visual to help
signal the “end” of a situation and encourage
them to move on to something else. So we use
Yucky Things!
What is A Yucky Thing?

The last step in the process is for the child to
deposit a Yucky Thing in any one of three
bins that are labeled with the dimensions of
attribution. Before they can get rid of the issue
they must explain the dimensions of attribution
in explicit terms about the situation or implicit
terms about the people involved.
Thank You For Having Me!
If you would like periodic emails
regarding additional ideas for
attribution retraining or any other
information please contact me at
[email protected].