A Replication and Extension of the PEERS Intervention: Examining Effects on Social Skills and Social Anxiety in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS: Laugeson et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 39(4):596-606, 2009). PEERS focuses on improving friendship quality and social skills among adolescents with higher-functioning ASD. 58 participants aged 11-16 years-old were randomly assigned to either an immediate treatment or waitlist comparison group. Results revealed, in comparison to the waitlist group, that the experimental treatment group significantly improved their knowledge of PEERS concepts and friendship skills, increased in their amount of get-togethers, and decreased in their levels of social anxiety, core autistic symptoms, and problem behaviors from pre-to post-PEERS. This study provides the first independent replication and extension of the empirically-supported PEERS social skills intervention for adolescents with ASD.

Parent and Family Outcomes of PEERS: A Social Skills Intervention for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Overall, results from this study suggest that the PEERS intervention offers promising adjunctive benefits for families in addition to the improved teen social outcomes resulting from PEERS demonstrated in the larger project encompassing this study as well as those conducted by others research groups (e.g., Laugeson et al 2011;Mandelberg et al 2014;Schohl et al 2014). The significant time × group interaction found on the CHAOS highlights the way in which the PEERS intervention, through the use of concurrent parent and teen sessions, may help improve the trajectory of family chaos or dysfunction for families heavily burdened by their child's diagnosis and associated impairments.…”

The Effectiveness of Social Skills Training Groups for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…While Laugeson et al (2009) andSchohl et al (2014) both assessed friendship quality, only Laugeson et al found significant time-condition interaction, which was in fact due to a reduction of the controls' scores. Mandelberg et al (2014) also assessed post-intervention improvements in friendship and observed an increase in the number of get-togethers organised with peers after PEERS, and this was maintained at follow-up.…”

“…Four RCTs Laugeson et al 2009;Schohl et al 2014;Yoo et al 2014), three quasi-experimental pre-post designs with a control group Ozonoff and Miller 1995;Turner-Brown et al 2008), four quasiexperimental pre-post designs without a control group (Hillier et al 2007(Hillier et al , 2011Liu et al 2013;Tse et al 2007), one randomised complete block design study (Mandelberg et al 2014) and one single-case multiple baseline study (Mitchel et al 2010) were identified.…”

“…PEERS involves 12-14 weekly sessions, with each session lasting 90 min and typically includes a parent or caregiver. Four studies evaluating PEERS used an RCT design (Laugeson et al 2009;Gantman et al 2012;Schohl et al 2014;Yoo et al 2014), and each of these included a wait-list control group. One study employed a quasi-experimental pre-post design in which participants were not randomly assigned to their conditions and there was no control group ).…”

“…The use of behavioural, in vivo measures may have improved the ecological and construct validity of these studies, something which was acknowledged by Gantman et al (2012) and Schohl et al (2014) and addressed by Yoo et al (2014) who used the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (Lord et al 2008) to observe social interaction, communication and play.…”