Integrate Autism 2015 Conference Dr. Kathleen Harris Seton Hill University

1. Peer-Mediated Interventions:Supporting Communication Skill Building, New Friendships, and Executive Function Skills for Success and Confidence Integrate Autism 2015 Conference Dr. Kathleen Harris Seton Hill University

2. Inclusion • The mission of inclusion results in stronger social and academic achievement, advanced citizenship, and the development of a community of learners (Bunch & Valeo, 2004)

3. Inclusive Early Childhood Programs • Inclusion is all about participating and belonging in a diverse society • Inclusive programs can benefit all young children with and without disabilities

4. Inclusive Early Childhood Programs • Inclusive programs are dynamic and complex environments that require teachers to adapt and overcome several challenges • Inclusion of young children with disabilities requires teachers to assume new responsibilities to meet children’s individual needs (Grisham-Brown & Pretti-Frontczak, 2005)

5. Executive Function • Cognitive construct adopted to describe behaviors thought to be mediated by the frontal lobes (Duncan, 1986) • Perform higher-level tasks • Behaviors: • Goal-directed • Problem-solving behaviors • Manages complex cognitive processes

6. Executive Function • Working Memory • Capacity to hold and manipulate information • Inhibitory Control • Skill used to master and filter thoughts and impulses • Cognitive or Mental Flexibility • Capacity to switch gears and adjust to changed demands, priorities, or perspectives

7. Executive Function Processes • Attention control • Cognitive Flexibility • Inhibition • Initiation • Megacognition • Organization • Planning • Response to feedback • Self-regulation • Working memory

8. Executive Function Abilities • Manage time and attention • Switch focus • Plan and organize • Remember details • Curb inappropriate speech or behaviors • Integrate past experience with present action

9. Executive Function ‒ Early Childhood • Executive Function develops across the lifespan • Critical developments occur during the early childhood years • Infants demonstrate attention and memory as early as four months of age (Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello 1998) • Cognitive flexibility improves between ages four and five (Davidson et al., 2006) • Succeeds at shifting actions according to changing rules • Young children, by age three, demonstrate working memory, attentional flexibility and inhibitory control (Hughes, 1998) • Remember information to complete tasks • Shift attention from one aspect of a task to another • Capable of controlling their own behavior by restraining their own actions • Inhibitory control improves between ages three and six (Montgomery & Koeltzow, 2010)

10. Peer-Mediated Intervention • A specific strategy for those working in inclusive learning environments can use to meet the needs of all young children • Peer-mediated interventions create opportunities for peers to take an instructional role with children with disabilities to promote social interaction and communication (Harris, Pretti-Frontczak, & Brown, 2009)

11. Peer-based Interventions • Peers with and without disabilities are trained to initiate interactions with their peers with disabilities • Students without disabilities are taught to use strategies within play and classroom settings that can increase the number of positive social behaviors for students with disabilities • Peer instruction • Peer modeling • Peer initiations

12. Characteristics Peer-Mediated Interventions • Addresses a comprehensive set of target skills across classroom activities and routines • Provides sufficient number of learning opportunities • Practical for all teachers. Peer-mediated interventions can be used within a wide variety of classroom activities • Increase a child’s active participation during daily activities

13. Why is competent peer interactions important? • Peer relationships provide children with opportunities to interact with relative equals • Peers are powerful “intervention agents” • Contributes to both cognitive and social developments • Peers present a rich source of cognitive conflict • Creates a sense of disequilibrium in children, which pushes children to try to fit new information with their existing information • Peer groups are a special context in which children learn and practice to share, turn take, and develop social component interactions

14. Types of Peer-Mediated Interventions • Odom and Strain (1984) identified three types of peer mediated interventions: • Peer Proximity • Peer Prompting & Reinforcement • Peer Initiation

15. Peer Proximity • Having a peer close to a child with a disability while they attempt a particular skill or set of tasks • Peer proximity can also create a wide variety of play skills for a child with disabilities

16. Peer Prompting and Reinforcement • Teaching peers to prompt and reinforce the desired response of their child with a disability • The peer can also role model and comment when the child with a disability does one or all of the steps correctly

17. Peer Initiation • Promotes social interaction skills for children with disabilities • Promoting social interactions can also take place by teaching social gestures such as holding hands, waving hello, or giving a high five

18. PMI Step-by-Step Considerations • A teacher should look at all children in the class and see who would be a proper ‘peer mediator’ for the target skill to be taught • Teachers will consider peer’s interests in a mediating a learning opportunity for a child with a disability • The teacher will need to plan activities that are highly motivating and engaging for the peer mediator to make them interested in modeling targeting skills for the child with a disability

19. Step #1 – Select a Target Skill • Review child’s present level of performance in area of concern (e.g., social development) • Rely on authentic assessment information (e.g., AEPS Test) • Get information from families (e.g., AEPS Family Report) • Consider the child’s strengths and emerging skills (e.g., in terms of initiating play, interacting with peers, taking turns) • Determine what the child needs to learn or where they need support

20. Step #2 – Match/Pair Peer Mediators • Review peers’ present level of performance (e.g., social development) • See if peer has mastered (e.g., scores from the Citizenship Rubric) the skill targeted for child with a disability • Talk to families regarding the peers’ social skills in other environments’ (consider a routines-based interview) • Use existing information to confirm peer has the capacity to prompt/initiate/give feedback the target skill

21. Step #3 – Select and Teach • Select one or more types of PMI (e.g., peer prompting) • Teach the peer to model/assist and/or prompt the child with a disability to practice the target skill • Tool for teaching the peer mediator – Use a social story • Social stories break down a task or social situation into smaller steps • Social stories are written in a child-specific format describing a social situation, person, skill, event, or concept • Social stories are typically written in four types of sentences (descriptive, perspective, directive, and affirmative (Gray, 1994)

22. Step #4 – Creating Supportive Environment for PMI • Make sure all the necessary supports are provided for the peer • Sufficient and appropriate toys available (i.e., based upon children’s interests, developmental readiness, and related to the target skill) • Visual reminders (e.g., pictures of children taking turns) • Verbal reminders (e.g., teacher reminds/prompts peer mediator)

23. PMI in Action!! • Prior to use PMI prepare peer mediator • Read social story • Role play • Prompt peer mediator

24. PMI in Action!! • Observe peer mediator in action • Provide additional supports as necessary • Provide reminders as necessary (e.g., remind the peer mediator to prompt the child more often) • Praise and encourage the peer mediator

25. Executive Function + PMI • Seven Steps to Coaching Executive Skills: • Step One: Identify specific behaviors • Step Two: Set a goal • Step Three: Outline the steps that need to be followed in order for the child to achieve the goal • Step Four: Whenever possible, turn the steps into a list, checklist, short list of rules to be followed • Step Five: Coach and guide the child: • Prompt the child to perform each step in the procedure • Observe the child while performing each step • Praise and reinforcement when the child is successful • Step Six: Evaluate the success, make developmentally appropriate changes • Step Seven: Fade and generalization

26. Classroom Environment • Well-defined interest areas that accommodate small groups • Consider number of “activity spaces” • Keep playgroups small (2 to 4 children) • Make sure you have toys available that are likely to encourage social interactions (interesting & novel) • Prepare sets of materials around play themes familiar to the children

27. Routines & Activities • Arrival Time • “Hello” • “Who do you want to play with today?” • Circle Time • Pass out and collect props from each child • Assist children during songs and finger plays • Story Time • Turn pages • “Picture walk” together • After completing an activity • Inviting a peer to take his/her place • Snack Time • Pass out snacks • Transition into another Center or Activity

28. Planned Routine Activities Encouraging Peer Interactions • Cooperative learning • Literature sharing • Puppetry • Music • Friendship activities using games and songs • Providing assistance to peers • Sharing play materials with peers • Repeating, expanding, or clarifying a peer’s comment • Turn taking during play activities • Responding to a peer’s initiation

29. Talent Themes for Young ChildrenStrengths-Based • Assign children peer buddies during centers and each children to stay and play with their buddy and to talk to their buddy • Change peer buddy assignments on a regular basis • Let peers get involved with data collection and progress monitoring • Teach socially component children to use incidental teaching strategies with peers • For example: to ask a peer to name the toy she wants, give her the toy when she names it, and praise her for naming the toy

30. Peer-based Intervention Guidelines • Involve the entire class for training the intervention activities • Focus on specific, measureable behaviors • Try only one intervention at a time • Try interventions in more than one center or one place in the classroom • Observe children • Train paraprofessionals to implement interventions

31. Advantages of Peer-Mediated Interventions – Children with Disabilities • Learns social and play skills by observing, interacting, and playing with children who are typically developing • Increases positive social functioning by imitating social skills • Gains independence during transition times • Increases frequency of social interactions

32. Advantages of Peer-Mediated Interventions- Children who are Typically Developing • Increases social and communicative strategies • Learns to accept and appreciate individual differences in ability and behavior as they interact with peers with special needs • Increases self-confidence as positive role models for language and social behaviors

33. References • Bunch, G., & Valeo, A. (2004). Student attitudes toward peers with disabilities in inclusive and special education schools. Disability and Society, 19(1), 61–76. • Cain, K. (2006). Individual differences in children’s memory and reading comprehension: An investigation of semantic and inhibitory deficits. Memory, 14, 553‒569. • Carpenter, M., Nagell, K., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 78, 647‒ 673. • Davidson, M. C., Amso, D., Anderson, L. C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037-2078. • Davidson, P., & Guare, R. (2010). Executive skills in children and adolescents: A practical guide to assessment and intervention. (2nd Edition). New York: NY. • Egel, A. L., & Gradel, K. (1988). Social integration of autistic children: Evaluation and recommendations. The Behavior Therapist, 52, 7−11. • Goldstein, H., & Wickstrom, S. (1986). Peer intervention effects on communicative interaction among handicapped and nonhandicapped. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 19, 209−214. • Goldstein, H., Ferrell, D. R. (1987). Augmenting communicative interaction between handicapped and nonhandicapped preschool children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 52, 200-211

34. References • Grisham-Brown, J., Hemmeter, M. L., & Pretti-Frontczak, K. (2005). Blended Practices for Teaching Young Children in Inclusive Settings. Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes Publishing. • Guralnick, M. J. (1990). Social competence and early intervention. Journal of Early Intervention.14, 3–14. • Harris, K. (2013). Citizenship Rubric. • Harris, K., Pretti-Frontczak, K., & Brown, T. (2009). Peer-mediated intervention: An effective, inclusive strategy for all young children. Young Children 64(2), 43-49. • Hughes, C. (1998). Executive function in preschoolers: Links with theory of mind and verbal ability. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 16, 233‒253. • Kamps, D.M., Leonard, B. R., Vernon, S., Dugan, E. P., & Delquadri, J. C. (1992). Teaching social skills to students with autism to increase peer interactions in an integrated first-grade classroom. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25, 281–288. • LeMonda, B. C., Holtzer, R., & Goldman, S. (2012). Relationship between executive functions and motor stereotypes in children with autistic disorder: Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, (6)3, 1099-1106. • Mathur, S. R., & Rutherford, R. B. (1991). Peer mediated interventions promoting social skills of children and youth with behavioral disorders. Education and Treatment of Children, 14(3), 227−243. • McHale, S. M., & Gamble, W. C. (1986). Mainstreaming handicapped children in public school settings: Challenges and limitations. In E. Schoplers & G. Mesibov (Eds.), Social Behavior and Autism (pp. 191−212). New York: Plenum Press.

35. References • McEvoy, R. E., Rogers, S. J., & Pennington, B. F. (1993). Executive Function and Social Communication Deficits in Young Autistic Children. Journal of Psychological Psychiatry, (34)4, 563-578. • Montgomery, D. #., & Koeltzow, T. E. (2010). A review of the day-night task: The Stroop paradigm and interference control in young children. Developmental Review, 30, 308‒330. • Morrison, L., Kamps, D., Garcia, J., & Parker, D. (2001). Peer mediation and monitoring strategies to improve initiations and social skills for students with autism. Journal of Positive Behavior Intervention, 3(4), 237–250. • Odom, S. T., & Watts, E. (1991). Reducing teacher prompts in peer mediated intervention for young children with autism. Journal of Special Education, 25(1), 26−44. • Odom, S. L. (2002). Widening the Circle: Including children with Disabilities in Preschool Programs. New York: Teachers College Press • Pretti-Frontzak, K., & Bricker, D. (2004). An activity-based approach to early intervention (3rd ed.). Baltimore: Brookes. • Strain, P. S. (1984). Social behavior patterns of non-handicapped and developmentally disabled friend pairs in mainstreamed preschools. Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities, 4, 15-28. • Strain, P. S. (1987). Comprehensive evaluation of young autistic children. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, 7, 97–110. • Widerstrom, A. H. (2005). Achieving learning goals through play. Baltimore: Brookes.