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PEERS

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Definition

The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®), developed at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), by Drs. Elizabeth Laugeson and Fred Frankel, is a caregiver-assisted group treatment intervention aimed at improving social skills among youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other social challenges. This international program, which is used in over 90 countries and has been translated into over a dozen languages, is one of the only evidence-based social skills interventions for youth with ASD. The group-based intervention has been developed and tested for transitional youth from adolescence to early adulthood and has generated four published evidence-based treatment manuals for practitioners and educators.

Social Skills for Teenagers with Developmental and Autism Spectrum Disorders: The PEERS®Treatment Manual (Laugeson and Frankel 2010), which is a 14-week parent-assisted intervention for adolescents with ASD, was the first...

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References and Reading

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  • Van Hecke, A. V., Stevens, S., Carson, A. M., Karst, J. S., Dolan, B., Schohl, K., et al. (2015). Measuring the plasticity of social approach: A randomized controlled trial of the effects of the PEERS intervention on EEG asymmetry in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45, 316–335.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Elizabeth Laugeson

Authors
  1. Elizabeth Laugeson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth Laugeson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Fred R. Volkmar

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Laugeson, E. (2021). PEERS. In: Volkmar, F.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91280-6_102157

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