138 Jill Locke and Colleen Harker
Future directions
Despite the promise of peer-mediated interventions, several important questions
remain unanswered that warrant future research. These areas are of critical impor-
tance to understand for replication studies as well as widespread implementation in
schools. First, though many studies report the fidelity of the expert adult facilitator
working with the peer models, the implementation fidelity (e.g., adherence, quality
of delivery, exposure) of the peer models is notably absent from the literature, save
for a few studies. This issue may be due to the fact that few peer-mediated interven-
tions have manuals with strict fidelity guidelines and many approaches share over-
lapping strategies (e.g., peer modeling, peer tutoring, peer mentoring, etc.). Thus, it
may be difficult to parse out specific steps of one particular peer-mediated inter-
vention approach to measure implementation fidelity. Furthermore, the intended
treatment goal of the intervention (i.e., academic or social skills) may determine
whether it is possible to measure implementation fidelity, as social skills may require
more flexible settings (e.g. on the playground or cafeteria) where strict fidelity may
be difficult to capture. Future studies also should examine the generalization of
skills to other students, beyond peer models (Hughes et al., 2012).
Additionally, there is a need to further examine the social characteristics of typ-
ically developing students who make the most effective peer models for children
and adolescents with ASD. Understanding the social profiles of peer models may
help determine under what conditions peer-mediated interventions should be
implemented. Moreover, rather than relying exclusively on teacher nominations,
peer models should be selected based on the social networks of students within
the classroom, to identify peers who are already socially connected to the student
with ASD. It also has been suggested that students with ASD should be involved in
selecting peer models, which may increase their buy-in in the intervention (Carter
and Kennedy, 2006). To date, these issues have not been systematically studied.
Research in this area has the potential to benefit the large and growing number of
children with ASD in inclusive school settings.
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