Near-Peer Facilitation of a Soft Skills Program for Young Adults With Autism

Abstract

Abstract Importance: Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience poor employment outcomes. Teaching soft skills and using peer-based interventions improve outcomes for people with ASD. Objective: To evaluate the preliminary efficacy of a soft skills intervention and the feasibility of delivery to a group of young adults with ASD by near-peer occupational therapy master’s-level students. Design: Pretest–posttest single-group design. Setting: College campus. Participants: Convenience sample of 14 young adults (M age = 21.57 yr) with ASD. Intervention: The Assistive Soft Skills and Employment Training (ASSET) program is a 12-session, manualized, soft skills group intervention previously validated with the ASD population. Topics include communication, attitude and enthusiasm, teamwork, networking, professionalism, and stress management. Outcomes and Measures: Social functioning, self-efficacy, and adaptive behavior were measured preintervention and immediately postintervention using standardized self-report rating scales. Participant satisfaction and experience were assessed using program-specific measures. Results: Participants made statistically significant improvements, with medium to large effect sizes in social functioning, self-efficacy, and adaptive behavior. They reported high levels of satisfaction and a positive experience with the program content and delivery. Conclusions and Relevance: This study provides evidence of participant satisfaction and perceived soft skills improvement and confidence, in addition to the preliminary efficacy of master’s-level students as near-peer facilitators of the ASSET program with an ASD population. What This Article Adds: The results suggest that trained and supervised master’s-level students can effectively deliver a manualized intervention as near-peer facilitators, elicit positive feedback and high levels of participant satisfaction, and replicate and extend previously reported participant gains.