Increasingly, parents, teachers, and students with disabilities are advocating for interventions that go beyond skill training to provide support for participation in integrated environments and support for friendships. The present research demonstrated a social network intervention for youths with moderate and severe disabilities. Two groups of nondisabled peers were recruited to participate in weekly discussions with an adult integration facilitator to increase opportunities for social interaction for 2 students (1 with autism and 1 who was moderately mentally retarded). The groups met to discuss social interactions that had occurred with the students with disabilities and to talk about strategies to promote greater inclusion of the students into ongoing social interaction. The nondisabled students participated in the design and implementation of social skills interventions during transition times and lunch. The nondisabled students used self-monitoring data sheets to record the quantity and quality of interactions. The frequency of interaction, number of opportunities for interaction, and appropriateness of social interactions were analyzed with a multiple baseline design. Results indicated that the social network intervention was successful in increasing the quantity and quality of interactions and that the network strategy promoted the development of friendships. The results are discussed in terms of the need for additional research showing the relationships between increases in social competence, peer-mediated intervention, and the development and support of friendship.

Two experiments were conducted to increase the initiations and duration of social interactions between autistic and nonhandicapped youths. Experiment 1 taught two autistic youths to initiate and elaborate social interactions with three age-appropriate and commonly used leisure objects; a radio, a video game, and gum. The students were first taught to use the objects and subsequently instructed in the related social skills. The youths generalized these social responses to other nonhandicapped peers in the same leisure setting. A second experiment trained a third autistic youth to emit similar social leisure skills. The use of the leisure objects and the related social skills were taught at the same time. The autistic youth learned these skills and generalized them to other handicapped peers in the same leisure setting. The importance of teaching generalized social responding in particular subenvironments was emphasized.DESCRIPTORS: social skills, autistic youthsThe term autism denotes a withdrawal from social interaction with other persons. Individuals diagnosed as autistic display an array of behavioral pathologies such as self-injury, overselective attention, and self-stimulation that theoretically are manifestations of the underlying condition of extreme self-directedness. The thrust of past educational and research efforts has been to develop interventions that remediate the behavioral excesses and skill deficits so common among autistic persons. An initial tactic has been to reduce aberrant behavior-like aggression and self-stimulationthrough behavior management procedures (Koegel & Covert, 1972). With deviant behavior under control, interventions have been applied to remediate language deficits (Lovaas, 1977) and to teach a number of skills in the areas of self-care, perceptual development (Schreibman, Koegel, & Craig,

We examined the differences between two groups of general education high school students: those who volunteered to participate in a peer buddy program designed to increase their social interactions with their peers with severe disabilities (n = 30), and those who chose not to volunteer (n = 30). Differences were examined using the Social Distance Questionnaire for Attitudes of High School Students Toward Handicapped Persons. Analyses indicated that, at pre-test, peer buddies reported significantly greater willingness to interact with people with severe disabilities and more previous contact with these individuals than did nonvolunteers. There were no differences between the scores of the groups on knowledge of disability or affect toward persons with disabilities. After one semester of enrollment in the program, social willingness, knowledge, and contact scores of peer buddies increased significantly, whereas the scores of nonvolunteers remained the same as at the pre-test. In addition, students' self-reported previous contact with individuals with disabilities positively correlated with their scores indicating their social willingness to interact with their peers with disabilities. Implications of the study are discussed with respect to benefits of and recommendations for peer interaction programs.

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Fifteen high school peer tutors and 15 “special friends” interacted daily for a semester with a class of 9 students with severe disabilities. Two measurement systems were employed: an attitude survey and social behavior probes. Social behavior probes were conducted with a familiar student with autism (i.e., a student from the special education class), an unfamiliar student with autism, and an unfamiliar nonhandicapped student. A pretest-posttest experimental design with control group was employed. In general, statistical comparisons of the groups indicated that serving as a peer tutor was equivalent to serving as a special friend across the two measures. However, on one measure (social interaction with an unfamiliar peer with autism) the special friends showed significantly higher levels of social interaction. Both groups interacted more frequently with the familiar student with autism than the unfamiliar student with autism or the unfamiliar nonhandicapped peer. The experimental groups produced substantially longer interactions than the control group.