PEERS® for Young Adults is a 16-week evidence-based social skills intervention for motivated young adults who are interested in learning ways to help them make and keep friends, and to develop romantic relationships. The Adult Autism Group first offered the program in the Springfield, Illinois in 2018. One woman and six men completed the program. One aspect of PEERS is putting the young adults in charge of planning and organizing social activities. Social outings included hanging out at the mall, game night, billiards, bowling, trivia night, and more. At the end of the program, we held a celebratory graduation dinner at Red Lobster.
A graduate said:
PEERS helped me overcome a lot of my social anxiety. Another thing it helped me with is interacting with people over the phone. I’ve become much more comfortable interacting with people that I otherwise would never have talked to. This program has done wonders for me and I highly recommend it for anyone on the spectrum who is remotely interested in improving their social skills in some way.
A social coach and parent said:
What an amazing program this is. My mostly non-verbal ASD son progressed from *very* reluctantly making the required phone calls to initiating calls, wanting to attend social outings and anticipating class.