The increase in diagnoses of autism for elementary aged students paired with schools increasingly moving towards inclusive classroom models creates a challenge for general education teachers. This quantitative quasi-experimental study was designed to investigate the efficacy of an after school, explicit social skills intervention, and the impact it had on the development of social skills for students with autism in Grades 2-5. This intervention was based in social thinking, a framework created for use in private therapy to address the needs of children with social deficits. The framework is composed of key concepts from the field of social cognition: central coherence, theory of mind, executive functioning, emotional regulation, and sensory integration. The intervention took place over 12 weeks with 44 participants from Grades 2-5 at an elementary school. Two instruments were used to collect data from pre- to post-intervention. The Social Thinking Progress Monitoring tool measured 10 social skills, once in Week 1 of the intervention and a second measure in Week 12. A frequency and observation recording tool created by myself was used to collect observational data in the classroom before the intervention with a second observation between Weeks 5 and 12 of the intervention. Data for both instruments were analyzed through a Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Results demonstrated a statistically significant difference between pre- and post-intervention median social skills scores as measured by the Social Thinking Progress Monitoring tool and a statistically significant difference between pre- and post-post-intervention measures of observable social skills outside the club setting. Findings from this study suggest that with a relatively small investment of time and money, social thinking is a viable program for schools to utilize to address the social needs of their students with autism in the general education setting. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]