Abstract
This article provides an overview of 3 approaches to peer-mediated intervention that have been effective in improving the social and communicative interactions among young children with autism and other developmental disabilities and their classmates without disabilities. These empirically supported peer-mediated interventions involve teaching facilitative initiation and responsive interaction strategies to peers, teaching sociodramatic scripts, and incorporating written text and graphic cueing. The article also shows how these approaches have been developed in a research program spanning two decades to illustrate how progress in peer-mediated interventions related to social communication development has benefited from the combination of clinical expertise and a data-driven, inductive approach to developing improved procedures. This review illustrates the importance of the development process as one continually refines and improves procedures that contribute to the documentation of empirically supported treatments.