Association for Behavior Analysis International

For autistic adults, social skills can often be a challenge that impacts the ability to make and maintain meaningful relationships, and currently there is limited research on social skills interventions. The current study investigated the effectiveness of social skills instruction delivered via telehealth in a community-based program for autistic adults. Ten adults aged 23-36 years with a diagnosis of autism or other developmental disability and their support staff participated in this study. During the program, participants attended weekly virtual social skills instruction, supplemented by homework assignments to practice skills. Instruction was based on PEERS®, an evidence-based intervention for young adults with autism. Data were analyzed using a paired-samples t test. Results indicated that participants’ scores significantly increased (t(8) = -4.21, p = .00) on a knowledge assessment based on PEERS® content from pretest (M = 29.89, SD = 5.44) to posttest (M = 36.11, SD = 2.52) shown in Figure 1. Staff and participants both rated the intervention as having high social validity, shown in Figure 2. These results suggest that a virtual social skills intervention based on PEERS® was associated with increased knowledge assessment scores in autistic adults and could be used in a community setting.