Education and Treatment of Children

We evaluated a social skills intervention with four children who had autism during interactive play with typical peers at a public elementary school. Paraprofessional staff (classroom assistants) used preteaching, rewards, and prompting to increase social initiations by the children toward peers. The children’s social responses to peer initiations also were measured and rewarded. Intervention was introduced in a multiple baseline design and produced increases in social interactions between the children and peers. The application of social skills training in naturalistic settings and topics for future research are discussed.