Early Peer Support
Sebastiana Veneziano, Antonina Monello, M. Cristina Accardo, Eligia Cavarra, Maria Palladino, Lorena Li Pera, Manuela Leone, Marianna Santoro, Elena Fratini, Lucio Cottini
The paper presents research aimed at testing the effectiveness of peer involvement in the teaching process to very young children with autism, with reference to the skills of imitation, autonomous play, shared play and social interaction. Specifically, an experimental situation was envisaged, both in the rehabilitation context and in schools, in which the teaching conducted initially by an adult (teacher or rehabilitation technician) was supplemented, at a later stage, by the strategy of peer tutoring, with the presence of a peer appropriately trained on the actions to be developed with reference to the objectives. The research replicated a previous experiment conducted with single-subject methodology by providing, in this case, an experimental group and a control group. The results confirm the effectiveness of the peer tutoring strategy, especially with reference to social and shared play skills, in which peer involvement resulted in significant differences between the groups. The ecological context in which the trainings took place contributes further significance to the research results.
Keywords
Autism, Peer tutoring, Social skills, Social game, Special education.
