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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Assessment of Social Interaction Behaviors
Published on: February 25, 2011
Brief Report: Assessment of Intervention Effects on In Vivo Peer Interactions in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum
Bridget K Dolan1, Amy V Van Hecke2, Audrey M Carson2,3
1Department of Psychology, Marquette University, PO Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI, 53201-1881, USA. bridget.dolan@marquette.edu.
Abstract:
This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a randomized controlled trial of a social skills intervention, the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS: Laugeson et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 39(4): 596-606, 2009), by coding digitally recorded social interactions between adolescent participants with ASD and a typically developing adolescent confederate. Adolescent participants engaged in a 10-min peer interaction at pre- and post-treatment. Interactions were coded using the Contextual Assessment of Social Skills (Ratto et al. in J Autism Dev Disord 41(9): 1277-1286, 2010). Participants who completed PEERS demonstrated significantly improved vocal expressiveness, as well as a trend toward improved overall quality of rapport, whereas participants in the waitlist group exhibited worse performance on these domains. The degree of this change was related to knowledge gained in PEERS.
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