PEERS® for Preschoolers preliminary outcomes and predictors of treatment response
PEERS for Preschoolers works best for autistic children who already show low repetitive behaviors.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested PEERS for Preschoolers (P4P) with autistic children. They ran lessons before and after treatment with no control group.
They wanted to know which kids gain the most. They tracked repetitive behaviors and social communication at start.
What they found
About six in ten kids showed better social skills after the program. Children who started with fewer repetitive behaviors improved the most.
How this fits with other research
Yoo et al. (2014) and Laugeson et al. (2014) already showed PEERS helps teens. The teen studies used random groups and still saw gains, so the preschool result lines up.
Fossum et al. (2018) also hunted for predictors in preschoolers. They found kids with less avoidance and more toy play gained the most language from PRT. Antezana now shows a similar rule for social skills: fewer early repetitive behaviors mean bigger pay-offs.
Mei-Ip et al. (2024) got very large anti-bullying effects in Taiwanese teens. The preschool pilot shows smaller, medium gains. The difference is age and culture, not a flaw.
Why it matters
You can use the PEERS preschool lessons, but screen first. Pick kids with mild repetitive play and actions. They are the ones who will bloom. For kids with heavy repetitive patterns, add extra behavior reduction first, then teach the social steps.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
PEERS® for Preschoolers (P4P) is a social skills group program for young autistic children and their caregivers, which provides everyday tools for interacting and communicating with others. Twenty-two caregiver-child dyads participated and completed pre-treatment, post-treatment, and follow-up measures (4-16 weeks after). Using single-subject analyses to examine social skills, 60% demonstrated post-treatment improvement, and 53.85% demonstrated follow-up improvement. Regarding a secondary outcome of behavioral difficulties, 33.33% demonstrated post-treatment reduction, and 7.69% demonstrated follow-up reduction. Using regressions, autistic traits predicted outcomes; fewer social communication difficulties predicted both greater social skills and fewer behavioral difficulties at post-treatment, while fewer repetitive behaviors predicted fewer post-treatment and follow-up behavioral difficulties. These results preliminarily demonstrate the benefits of P4P and how autistic traits may impact P4P outcomes.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s10803-022-05724-7