Brief Report: Effectiveness of an Accelerated Version of the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention for Adolescents.
You can deliver PEERS® twice a week for 7 weeks and still get the same social-skills gains as the usual 14-week course.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bellon-Harn et al. (2020) asked: can we squeeze the 14-week PEERS® social-skills course into half the time?
They randomly assigned teens with autism to either the new 7-week speed-up version or the usual 14-week course.
Both groups met twice a week and covered the same lessons; only the pace changed.
What they found
At the end, both groups had the same social-skills gains.
The accelerated teens learned conversation rules, peer-entry tactics, and friendship skills just as well as the standard group.
How this fits with other research
Rabin et al. (2018) already showed the standard PEERS® works in Hebrew. Bellon-Harn et al. (2020) now show the same lessons can be cut to seven weeks without loss.
Olsen et al. (2021) stretched PEERS® down to preschoolers and found skills held up years later. Together the studies say: PEERS® is sturdy across ages and formats.
Factor et al. (2021) got good conversation gains in adults after only four weeks of computer plus peer practice. Their short timeline matches L’s finding that social learning does not need a semester to stick.
Why it matters
If your clinic has a wait list or a school only gives you nine weeks before break, you can still run PEERS®. Keep the twice-a-week schedule, keep the parent handouts, and finish in half the time. Teens get the same friendships without missing half a semester.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Evidence supporting the effectiveness of the PEERS® social skills intervention for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder is relatively strong. Less is known about whether the duration of the program impacts participant outcomes. The current study compared outcomes of participants randomly assigned to participate in an accelerated version of PEERS that met twice weekly for 7 weeks (n = 11) or the traditional PEERS program that met once weekly for 14 weeks (n = 10). The accelerated PEERS group demonstrated improvements consistent with previous research on the program, and treatment response did not differ significantly between the accelerated PEERS and traditional PEERS groups. Together, findings provide preliminary evidence that PEERS is effective when administered as a 7-week program.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s10803-019-03939-9