Effects of a Teacher-Facilitated Peer-Mediated Intervention on Social Play of Preschoolers with Autism.
Train preschool peers through quick teacher-led BST and watch interactive play soar without extra staff.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four preschool dyads, each with one child with autism and one typical peer, took part. The teacher learned the Stay Play Talk package through brief behavioral-skills training. She then taught the typical peer to stay near, play, and talk with the autistic classmate during free-play centers.
The study used a multiple baseline across dyads. Researchers tracked interactive play, child initiations, and time spent alone.
What they found
Every dyad showed a big jump in interactive play and child-led initiations. Solitary play dropped and the gains lasted after the researcher left. Parents and teachers noticed the change at home and on the playground.
How this fits with other research
Odom et al. (1986) first asked who should cue the peer: the child or the teacher. They found peer-only prompts boosted responses, but teacher plus peer prompts created longer back-and-forth chats. The new study keeps the teacher in the loop and gets the same long chains.
Lowe et al. (1995) showed peers can deliver Pivotal Response Training. Laermans et al. (2025) swaps PRT for the simpler Stay Play Talk rules and still sees large, lasting gains. The package is lighter, so teachers can run it without extra staff.
Kent et al. (2021) ran a randomized trial with older, elementary students and saw only moderate effects. The preschool sample in Laermans et al. (2025) showed larger jumps, hinting that earlier delivery may pack more punch.
Why it matters
You can teach the whole Stay Play Talk package to a preschool teacher in one prep period. After that, she coaches typical peers during regular free play. No extra adults, no pull-out sessions. Interactive play doubles and keeps going after you stop taking data. If you support preschool inclusion, add this low-cost routine to your teacher-training menu.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with autism often display differences in functional and symbolic play and may experience barriers to social inclusion with peers in preschool settings. Therefore, interventions supporting social play between children with autism and their peers that can be feasibly implemented by teachers in inclusive settings are needed. A teacher-implemented peer-mediated Stay Play Talk (SPT; Goldstein et al. in Top Lang Disord 27(2):182-199, 2007) intervention package targeting the type of play children with autism engage in with peers was implemented using a concurrent multiple baseline design across four participant/peer dyads. Using a cascading coaching model with behavioral skills training, a teacher was trained in intervention strategies and then taught and supported four peers to implement the intervention. In addition to visual analysis, to statistically analyze effects, we calculated effect sizes using the parametric measure standardized mean difference. A functional relation between the intervention and increases in interactive play and initiations and decreases in solitary play was demonstrated across all dyads. Results generalized to novel settings and maintained following withdrawal of teacher support. Results suggest that SPT can be effectively implemented by a teacher to support interactive play between children with and without autism in an inclusive classroom. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1037/spq0000161