This issue of NASET’s Autism Spectrum Disorder series focuses on social skills and ASD (written by Melanie Tempest). Social skills are a core deficiency of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), characterized by delay or lack of joint attention, social communication, social-emotional reciprocity and play. Many studies have researched the effectiveness of social skills training in early intervention, school and clinical settings, focusing on using one interventionist mediator agent either parent, peer or teacher. The results of these studies have shown that social skills training can be effective. However, the studies have not looked at generalizing and maintaining these behaviors across environments and social partners. The objective of this literature review is to examine the effectiveness of the interventions from the perspective of the mediator agent; parent, peer or teacher and the effect of that intervention on generalization of acquired social skills. Results indicate that further research is warranted on combining the three approaches; parent, peer, teacher intervention so that acquired social skills can be generalized across multiple environments.

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