Study of Peer Relationships at School

Once families have decided to join the study, and have completed the informed consent process using the "Social Skills Club - Parent Consent", and once we obtain letters of agreement from participating elementary schools, children with ASD will be randomly assigned to one of two intervention conditions, SKILLS or ENGAGE, led by two trained doctoral students. Since children will be randomized to either the SKILLS or the ENGAGE group, we are hoping to determine the active ingredients for successfully integrating children with autism. For both the SKILLS and the ENGAGE groups, all interventions and observations of children will take place in the target child's school. Thus, upon admission to the project, research personnel will attend the participant's classroom at school, and distribute consent forms titled "Peer Relationships at School - Classroom Parent Consent" to all children in the class. The consenting process should be no more than ten minutes. For those children that return informed consent from their parents, as well as offer assent on the "Children's Classroom Assent" to join to the project, social network measures (including brief demographic information), as well as friendship surveys (Friendships Qualities Scale; FQS), and an emotion measure (loneliness questionnaire) will be distributed at pre-intervention (baseline), post-intervention, and follow-up time points. These measures will take approximately 30-40 minutes per each time point. Graduate students will administer the measures and will make every effort to do so at a convenient time for the teacher and for the classroom to avoid utilizing instructional time. In addition, the efficacy of the treatment interventions will be assessed with ongoing direct behavioral observations at entry, twice during treatment, at exit, and at the 2-month follow-up.

Inclusion criteria

• Children are between the ages of 7 and 12 years in grades 2-5.
• Children have a clinical diagnosis of autism or PDD-NOS, and/or meet criteria on the ADOS for ASD or autism.
• Children have an IQ of 70 or above
• Children are fully included in a typical classroom for 80% or more of the school day
• Children are expected to stay in the school or the classroom for the duration of the study.
• Families with low SES and/or from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds

Exclusion criteria

• Children must not have additional diagnoses or sensory or motor impairments.