Teaching social skill acquisition to adolescent students with autism: A systematic review of peer-mediated interventions published between 2010 and 2020

Abstract

Many adolescent students with autism experience social communication challenges that can have a significant impact on their social, academic, and vocational outcomes. The transition from childhood to adolescence often intensifies these challenges. Peer-mediated instruction and intervention (PMII) is a type of peer-focused approach that involves the use of typically developing peers to deliver instruction to peers with disabilities within general education settings. Through several systematic reviews, a strong evidence base exists for the use of PMII for students with autism. However, these reviews have been limited to the inclusion of research involving children under nine years of age, participants with high functioning autism, studies that have used a single specific research design, or target only certain social skills. The current study provides a comprehensive review of studies published between 2010 and 2020 that used school-based PMII to target social outcomes for adolescent students with autism, without limiting inclusion to severity of autism diagnosis or the social skills targeted. This review synthesised the methodological features and participant characteristics of the included studies, investigated their most targeted dependent variables, evaluated research report quality, and identified current research limitations. Results showed that most studies targeted more than one dependent variable with social interactions and communication among the most popular. Evaluation confirmed that all included research achieved at least an adequate level of evidence rating. Several limitations were identified across the reviewed studies, including a lack of female participants, concentration of studies conducted within the United States, and a preference for lunch-time school-based intervention. Recommendations for overcoming such limitations in future research are explored.