Strengthening Skills Behavioral Intervention for Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Strengthening Skills Program is a new, multi-component intervention. It includes three components: (1) Forming habits to compensate for the difficulties many adults with ASD have with thinking flexibly, planning, and time management. It will emphasize habit-forming behaviors to compensate for weaknesses in functional skills by training on practical techniques; (2) Content from the PEERS Social Skills program to target social challenges, and (3) strategies derived from Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction to target emotion regulation.

PEERS® is a well-established social communication training program, initially developed for adolescents, and more recently extended to young adults with ASD. Program content will be adapted slightly so as to be appropriate for older adults.