Social Skills Intervention for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Survey of School Psychologists

Social skills interventions for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are needed as the number of students with ASD are increasing in educational settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate school psychologists' perceptions on the effectiveness and generalization of social skills interventions for students with ASD. Training and confidence of providing services to students with ASD was also examined in the study. A survey was administered to a sample of school psychologists from the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). In total, 221 responses were received and 136 of those responders indicated that they have implemented or organized a social skills intervention for a student(s) with ASD. It was found that the majority of school psychologists were implementing, organizing or recommending Social Stories and Pivotal Response Training/Direct Instruction interventions. It was also discovered that Pivotal Response Training/ Direct Instruction was perceived as one of the most effective social skills interventions. Peer mediated interventions were perceived to be better at generalizing social skills interactions outside of training. School psychologists rated their confidence in providing direct/indirect social skills interventions as moderate.