Research: Interventions That Facilitate Socialization in Children with Autism

This article reviews research showing that the socialization of children with autism can be improved through several different means, and these methods are described. The author begins by pointing out that social difficulties are among the most troubling features of autism, and that improved social skills lead to better use and comprehension of language. In order to improve social skills, several approaches are used. The successful tools for preschoolers with autism are: parents imitating a child's play, pivotal response training, visual cueing, peer-mediated techniques, peer tutoring, social stories, and applied behavior analysis (ABA). The successful tools for school-aged children with autism are the same as for preschoolers, but self-management strategies and video-modeling techniques also work well. For adolescents, the successful tools are: object-initiated interactions, self-management strategies, peer-mediated techniques, and social skills groups. The author concludes that that more research is required to determine which methods are best at which ages.