24 Sunny Kim, Brittany Koegel and Lynn Kern Koegel
found that implementing the activities that incorporated the perseverative interests
of the students with ASD led to increases in appropriate social interactions between
students with ASD and typical peers. The study also found that this type of interven-
tion resulted in generalization to other playground activities and an improved overall
affect for both students with ASD and typical peers.
Similarly, Koegel, Fredeen, Kim, Danial, Rubinstein, and Koegel (2012) and
Koegel, Kim, Koegel, and Schwartzman (2013) expanded this line of research by
incorporating child-preferred interests into club activities for adolescents with ASD.
For example, one of the participants had a preferred interest in movies. Therefore,
a movie trivia club that was available to all students at the high school was created.
The nice thing about this type of social intervention was that it was similar to
other clubs already available at the high school, thus the typically developing stu-
dents were unaware that it was created around a specialized theme. The researchers
found that incorporating the preferred interests of students with ASD into clubs
led to improvements in social engagement and verbal initiations for these students.
The researchers also found that both students with ASD and typically developing
peers self-reported happiness and enjoyment when participating in the social inter-
vention. Finally, the researchers found that a few of the participants were able to
develop reciprocated friendships with typically developing peers.
Anecdotally one of the participants had never been invited to hang out with
a typically developing peer, nor had he received a birthday invitation from a peer,
until he participated in the club designed around his perseverative interest (i.e.,
Movie Trivia Club). However, during the course of this study, he received multiple
invitations to hang out and invitations to birthday parties from typically develop-
ing peers who also participated in the same club. These studies demonstrate that
incorporating the preferred interests of students with ASD into clubs is a simple yet
effective social intervention model that is enjoyable for all students. Also, because
the students with ASD generally have accumulated a vast knowledge base in the
club theme, they are often viewed as the valued member of the peer group.
Priming. Often times, there is a complete lack of socialization or initiations
made by students with ASD, even when there is a presence of potential social
partners in close proximity. While there are many ways to increase socialization for
individuals on the spectrum, social priming is an effective evidence-based strat-
egy to increase social competence (Gengoux, 2009). Social priming is a strategy
that involves previewing an activity in a low-demand, highly reinforcing context
(Wilde, Koegel, and Koegel, 1992; Zanolli et al., 1996). For social priming, one
should preview a social game (e.g., Connect 4, card games, silly faces for elementary
school students) then provide the student access to the same game during a social
context, such as recess.
Priming should be done relatively close in time to the exposure of the activity,
such as either right before the exposure, after school the previous day, or the night
before at home. Research has shown that when children with ASD are primed,
it results in increased rates of initiations and higher levels of peer social interac-
tion. Further, children who are primed are able to excel as the more competent