The Stratford School (Highland Park, Illinois), a public day school program serving primarily a population of 3-to-21-year-old trainable mentally handicapped students, established a program whereby students with autistic characteristics (who were previously placed in self-contained, homogeneous classes) would be integrated with non-autistic moderately retarded classmates. Parents of the autisticlike children wanted a more socially interactive classroom experience for their children. A Peer Helper program was initiated, involving six fifth-grade students (four girls and two boys) from a nearby elementary school to help teach social and play skills to the Stratford students. Training sessions for the peer helpers encompassed: (1) an overview of autistic characteristics; (2) classroom visits; (3) explanation of peer helper activities; (4) videotape presentation; and (5) observation of resource teachers. Changes observed in Stratford's handicapped students after the Peer Helper program included increased attending behavior; increased on-task behavior; and increased social behaviors. Results indicated that the training of teachers and students resulted not only in improvement of the behavior of Stratford students but also increased the peer helpers' understanding of the disabled population as measured by the Peer Attitudes toward the Handicapped Scale (Bagley et al, 1981). Appendices include sample activities, sample peer attitude questions, a fact sheet on autistic children, the peer helpers worksheet, and references. (CB)