We are so excited to have Board Certified Behavioral Analyst (BCBA) Melissa Burkhardt, M.S. Ed. joining us on Thursday for our webinar Autism and Friendships: Peer Mediated Instruction and Intervention. We sat down with Melissa to get a sneak peek before the webinar. Read on to see what she said!
1. What do you find is the best way to promote interactions between typically developing peers and students with autism spectrum disorder?
One great way to promote interactions between typical peers and children with autism is to set-up a sensory/social play experience that both children enjoy and encourage (prompt and model if needed) the children to share materials, take turns and to share the joy of interacting (joint attention) with each other and the materials.
2. Is Peer Mediated Instruction and Intervention hard to implement?
Peer-Mediated Instruction and Intervention (PM-II) takes a little extra planning and set-up at first. But, as the children learn the skills to interact with one another and begin to form real friendships less prompting and set-up is needed and the interactions (social learning) takes place throughout the school day in a more natural way.
3. What is the biggest challenge you typically see when implementing PM-II?
The biggest challenge I see in implementing PM-II is making the time to initially implement PM-II and getting other adults in the environment to “buy-in” to this evidence-based strategy. The investment of time initially results in a big pay-off later as the children begin to naturally interact and have social learning opportunities across the school day.
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