Adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have persistent difficulty developing and generalizing social communication and interaction skills. Emerging research has demonstrated that people with ASD have benefited from strategies that embed multiple-exemplar training (MET) to increase generalization of social skills.…

Deficits in social skills are common in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and there is an urgent need for effective social skills interventions, especially for improving interactions with typically developing peers. This study examined the effects of a naturalistic behavioral social skills intervention in improving social initiations…

The present study utilized a multiple baseline across participants design and targeted a crucial component of social interaction, conversational skills, through implementation of the teaching interactions procedure with college students with intellectual disabilities within naturalistic settings. For each participant, the mean frequency of both…

Social skills instruction (SSI) provides a promising avenue for teaching and promoting positive social interactions to students with high-incidence disabilities. Within SSI, a distinction can be made between social skills and social competence. Social skills are specific behaviors one must perform correctly within a specific social context or…

Social skills training programs have increasingly enlisted same-age typical peers as instructors in the teaching of social skills to children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The inclusion of peers in the teaching process has been found to be a critical component in these programs. Despite strong support for incorporating…

Research suggests that while social skills groups in school settings can be effective for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), generalization of the skills and behaviors learned in these groups to other settings can be problematic. This study assessed the use of a say-do correspondence intervention to increase generalization at recess of…

Peer support arrangements are an evidence-based practice for increasing interactions between students with severe disabilities and their peers in general education classrooms, but it is unclear how interactions vary across instructional formats or generalize outside the classroom. In this single-case design study, we tested the efficacy of peer…

This study compared social stories and the teaching interaction procedure to teach social skills to 6 children and adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder. Researchers taught 18 social skills with social stories and 18 social skills with the teaching interaction procedure within a parallel treatment design. The teaching interaction procedure…

Divorce is an increasingly prevalent occurrence in society that has the potential to result in many adverse short- and long-term consequences for children and their parents. Social skills, such as those with peers, are one of the problems that may emerge for children of divorce. Despite this growing problem, there is a paucity of research…

To support children with autism in inclusive classrooms, schools are increasingly utilizing paraprofessionals. However, research suggests that paraprofessionals often lack sufficient training and may inadvertently hinder the social interactions between children with disabilities and their peers. This study used a multiple baseline across…

Social dysfunction has been called the most central and disabling feature of Asperger Syndrome (AS). Without intervention, individuals with AS do not outgrow deficits in the area of social skills. Implementing social skills interventions that improve an individual's social competence may help to prevent some negative outcomes associated with…

Autism is primarily a social disorder and deficits in social-orienting may be responsible for the failure of children with autism to initiate critical social behaviors. The purpose of this research was to improve the quality of social interactions of children with autism by implementing naturalistic behavior strategies intervention utilizing a…

Impairments in social competence are core deficits for individuals with high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome (HFA/AS). As the incidence rate for these disorders continues to increase so does the urgency to identify evidence-based interventions that can remediate core deficits in order to provide these individuals with independence as…

We taught three high school students with high-functioning autism to increase their novel peer-directed questions when using a communication book to converse with general education partners at school. Novel question training was associated with participants asking peer-directed questions not displayed in communication books across a variety of…

Many students with complex disabilities (e.g., moderate and severe disabilities, autism spectrum disorder) require explicit instruction in social skills in order to respond to and initiate interaction with their peers. This article reviews the research on developing social skills groups to teach peer interactions for students with complex special…