Peer-Mediated Interventions
Peer-mediated interventions (PMIs) involve using socially competent peer confederates to initiate and maintain social interactions with students with autism. The peer confederatespeer confederatesPeers who are trained to assist with socialization interventions by initiating or maintaining social interactions with students with autism. peer confederatesPeers who are trained to assist with socialization interventions by initiating or maintaining social interactions with students with autism. receive training in effective methods for accomplishing these outcomes before intervention. PMIs have been used successfully to increase social behavior in a variety of age groups of students with autism from preschool through secondary (Chang & Locke, 2016).
A substantial research base provides strong support for engaging typically developing peers as social change agents for students with autism using a wide variety of PMI formats. No single PMI format stands out as producing superior results (Chan et al., 2009). In general, PMI formats reflect the following elements:
· Peers are taught behavioral skills for initiating, prompting, and reinforcing desired social behaviors before starting the PMI.
· A high-interest activity (e.g., lunch or snack time, interest-based clubs, playtime, center time) is used as the venue for the PMI.
· PMIs are one component of a socialization intervention package that includes other evidence-based socialization interventions (e.g., direct instruction of target skills, scripts, self-monitoring, visual supports, communication supports).
· Some PMIs incorporate the novel or perseverative interests of the participants with autism by designing social interaction activities based on those interests.
· PMIs (and other socialization interventions) can address the function(s) of challenging behaviors by providing reinforcement socially acceptable behaviors.
The number of socially competent peers paired with a student with autism seems to affect the level of social behaviors exhibited by the students with autism. Using dyads (one peer without a disability paired with one student with autism) seems to result in a greater level of social responding than do triads (two peers without disabilities with one student with autism) (Sasso, Mundschenk, Melloy, & Casey, 1998). This suggests that when more than one peer without disabilities is present, those students tend to interact more with one another than with the student with a disability (Sasso et al., 1998).