Even with inclusive general education classrooms, high school students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have few social interactions with classmates. Peer support arrangements hold promise for increasing peer interactions and shared learning within general education classrooms. However, previous evaluations of this intervention have focused narrowly on adolescents with severe intellectual disability. In this pilot study, we examined the impact and social validity of peer support arrangements for four high school students with ASD. All four students increased their social interactions with peers, while academic engagement either increased or maintained for three students. Social validity data from peer partners and students indicated they considered the intervention acceptable. We discuss limitations and offer recommendations for future research and practice aimed at enhancing social connections within inclusive classrooms.

Many youth with autism spectrum disorder participate in school-based, peer-mediated intervention programs designed to improve their social experiences. However, there is little research discerning how these youth view intervention practices currently represented in the literature, information which could improve the social validity of intervention programming. In this mixed-methods study, we interviewed 33 youth with autism spectrum disorder about seven social-focused, peer-mediated intervention components. We asked participants to rate the favorability of each component to determine their degree of liking. Subsequently, we asked participants to give a rationale for their rating, in order to explore influencing factors. Chi-square tests indicated that high ratings were most prevalent for recruiting peers and family involvement and medium ratings were most prevalent for meeting with peers. Analyses of variance also indicated that preferences in the specific format intervention components were delivered. Several themes emerged from our qualitative analysis of open-ended responses, including the ramifications of adults in adolescent social life, the advantages of learning through shared activities with peers, and the effects of disclosing disability status. Our findings will offer guidance for researchers and practitioners interested in individualizing interventions to reflect student preferences. Furthermore, we document areas of concern for youth with autism spectrum disorder as they access school-based interventions.

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Research and Practice fo r Persons w ith Severe Disabilities 2014, Vol. 39(2) 100-118 © The A u th o r(s ) 2 0 14 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav D O I: 10 .117 7 /15 40 7 9 69 14544550 rpsd.sagepub.com DSAGE K a r e n F. G a r d n e r 1, E r ik W . C a r t e r 1, Je n n y R. G u s ta fs o n 1, Ju lia M . H o c h m a n 1, M ic h e lle N . H a r v e y 1, T e a g a n S. M u llin s ', a n d H a n n a h F a n 1 A b s t r a c t Supporting social interactions and positive peer relationships is an im p o rta n t elem ent o f comprehensive secondary education and transition programming. For many adolescents w ith autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), such social connections may be fairly lim ited apart fro m intentional programming. W e examined the efficacy and social validity o f peer n e tw o rk interventions as an avenue fo r pro m o ting social interactions and social skills fo r tw o high school students w ith ASD. The in tro d u ctio n o f peer netw orks was accompanied by substantial increases in peer interactions fo r both students. A d u lt facilitators, peer partners, and students w ith ASD each considered the intervention to be acceptable and feasible to implement. W e offer recom m endations fo r designing social-focused interventions fo r adolescents w ith ASD and highlight fu tu re research directions.

Implementing motivated behaviors on the basis of prior reward is central to adaptive human functioning, but aberrant reward-motivated behavior is a core feature of neuropsychiatric illness. Children from disadvantaged neighborhoods have decreased access to rewards, which may shape motivational neurocircuits and risk for psychopathology. Here, we leveraged the unprecedented neuroimaging data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study to test the hypothesis that neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage shapes the functional recruitment of motivational neurocircuits in children. Specifically, via the ABCD study’s monetary-incentive-delay task ( N = 6,396 children; age: 9–10 years), we found that children from zip codes with a high Area Deprivation Index demonstrate blunted recruitment of striatum (dorsal and ventral nuclei) and pallidum during reward anticipation. In fact, blunted dorsal striatal recruitment during reward anticipation mediated the association between Area Deprivation Index and increased attention problems. These data reveal a candidate mechanism driving elevated risk for psychopathology in children from socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods.