Peer-Mediated Prompting to Increase Responding and Compliance Through the Use of Peer Buddies for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The current study investigated whether pairing a typically developing peer (a peer buddy) with a child who has an ASD and providing individualized training to the peer buddy would increase responding and compliance from the child who has ASD (i.e. peer buddy system) in a summer camp setting. Also, a second purpose was to see if the typically developing peers were able to master and correctly implement the three step process taught during one-on-one training. Using a multiple baseline across participants design, the study examined the effects of one-one training on the fidelity of the peers’ implementation of the intervention, and the effects of the intervention on the responding from the children with an ASD. The peers were able to demonstrate high fidelity for (a) providing a clear instruction and (b) providing a prompt if needed, but they did not demonstrate high fidelity for (c) providing social praise. The responding from the children with an ASD improved after the peers received one-on-one training. This study extended the current literature on the importance of the fidelity of peers implementing the procedures, the necessary training for those peers to maintain good fidelity, and research that peer mediated interventions increase socially desirable response from children with ASD.