THE GENERALISATION OF SOCIAL SKILLS BY PREFERRED PEERS WITH AUTISM

Although strategies have been used effectively to promote the generalisation of social skills between children with disabilities and peers without disabilities, few studies have reported procedures that foster the generalisation of social skills between young children with autism. Rarer still is the inclusion of the child with autism's choice of playmate when participants are selected for social skills programs. The study used a replicated AB design to evaluate the generalisation to the playground of selected social skills taught in a brief program conducted in an early intervention centre. Results indicate that children with autism can identify preferred peers, and when mutually selected pairs of children with autism participate in a social skills program as an addition to their ongoing participation in early intervention, increases in skills can be observed in the generalisation setting. Increases in specific skills, however, are not consistent for all children. Suggestions for future research based on the results from this study are discussed.