This program aims at improving employment outcomes for young adults with ASD. The program is based on empirically validated social skills taught in the PEERS for Young Adults curriculum, one of the only evidence-based social skills interventions for adults with ASD, in combination with new material focused on skills needed to gain and maintain meaningful, competitive employment. This program is currently in its first cohort that began in May 2020 including 23 young adults and 14 peer mentors who serve as individual career coaches. Participants are randomized into 2 groups- one group who receives a peer mentor, and one who does not have a peer mentor. In this randomized control trial, participants meet weekly for a 90-minute group followed by 60 minutes of practice for 20 weeks and learn skills related to resume writing, completing job applications, interviewing skills, workplace conversational skills, peer entry and exiting strategies, and conflict resolution/management skills. Following 20 weeks of lessons each participant will re-randomized to determine if they will have a peer mentor, all participants will be placed into a 10-week internship with companies partnered with PEERS for Careers. The first cohort has successfully begun via Zoom sessions for remote intervention. Pre, post-intervention, post-internship, and follow-up data will be used to measure social functioning and job acquisition/retention. For more information on this study contact us at 310-26-PEERS or peersclinic@ucla.edu
Current status: Project live PEERS for Preschoolers Flyer.pdf
