Peer responsive interaction and AAC (Biggs et al., 2025)

Purpose: Elementary-aged peers often need support for them to have positive interactions with classmates with autism who are minimally speaking (i.e., fewer than 30 functional spoken words). This study examined whether peers could learn to use responsive interaction strategies to support inclusive play and communication within a peer network intervention.

Method: A single-case, multiple-baseline across-strategies design was used to evaluate whether an initial teaching session paired with coaching was effective to teach peers responsive interaction strategies that incorporated aided augmentative and alternative communication. Participants were two elementary-aged autistic students who were minimally speaking, four peers, and their educational team members.

Results: The initial teaching paired with coaching was effective in teaching peers the three responsive interaction strategies called the Ways to Talk and Play. Additionally, the nature of interactions changed in beneficial ways when peers learned the Ways to Talk and Play. The strategies were viewed favorably by students with autism, peers, and educational team members.

Conclusion: School teams can use intervention models such as this to improve outcomes for minimally speaking students with autism by equipping peers as responsive communication and play partners.

Supplemental Material S1. Fidelity checklists for baseline sessions, peer teaching sessions, and intervention peer network sessions.

Supplemental Material S2. Sample play menu.

Supplemental Material S3. Books, lesson objectives, and lesson lengths for the social–emotional lessons during baseline.

Supplemental Material S4. Interobserver agreement (IOA) percentages (occurrence) by participant and variable.

Supplemental Material S5. Social validity ratings from peers, using 4-point rating scales specific to each question.

Supplemental Material S6. Educator social validity ratings for the goals of the intervention (n = 5 educators).

Biggs, E. E., Turner, E. C., Elchos, E., Spann, E., & Scotti, K. E. (2025). Teaching elementary-aged peers responsive interaction and augmentative and alternative communication strategies within a peer network intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 56(2), 380–396. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_LSHSS-24-00092