Presenters:

Charmaine Chadwick
ABA-Behaviour Resource Facilitator
Huron-Perth Catholic Disctrict School Board

Carmen Hall
Coordinator of the Autism & Behavioural Science Graduate Certificate Program
Fanshawe College

Jessica Langan
Teacher, Our Lady of Mount Carmel School
Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board

Grade 8 Students Presenting- Building Social Relationships – A Story Shared By Students
Sara Dietrich, Brendan Gordon, Cole Martin, David Noel, Amanda Pittao, Nathan Somerton, Julia Stewart
As participants in the Peer Pals Program since grade 3 these students (one of whom has a diagnosis of Autism) will share how the Program has enriched their social relationships.

This workshop will highlight the essential components of the Peer Pals (Peers Establishing Effective Relationships) Program.

The PEER Pals Program is a peer-mediated social skills program intended to:

• Enhance social communication skills of all students
• Educate peers on how to successfully interact with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs)
• Increase school-wide disability awareness
• Promote a strengths-based perspective in both attitudes and behaviours
• Encourage a culture within the school environment that promotes pro-social behaviour
• Enhance students’ leadership and problem-solving skills

Although the initial intent was to focus on students with ASD, the program is designed to benefit all students and staff while building a sense of community within the school. In the PEER Pals Program, social communication skills are taught in the classroom, student leaders run structured games at recess for trained peers to participate in, and diversity training is provided for the entire school. This diversity training focuses on disability awareness, overcoming challenges, and building on strengths. The PEER Pals Program provides educators with guidance in teaching social skills and creates opportunities for all students to use these skills in the classroom and other environments throughout the school day. The PEER Pals Program is not an add-on program, but is embedded into the curriculum. Schools adapt the Program to best suit their particular needs and school cultures.

Five key behavioural principles will be highlighted: Persistence, Prompting, Modeling, Correction, and Reinforcement.

In addition, A Peer-Mediated Approach: Classroom-Component and the Stay, Play, Talk Programs will be discussed. These two programs were developed in order to meet the needs of schools that were not able to endorse the full Peer Pals Program, and/or meet the needs of students in the Early Years Program.

In order to further demonstrate the benefits, video footage of schools within Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board that are running the program will be available.

Finally, there are seven students (one of whom has a diagnosis of autism)who have developed a 45 minute presentation about their elementary schools years together. They will share and demonstrate first hand experiences about what they learned and the benefits of using such an approach.