Peer Mediating Instruction And Intervention Analysis

In the articles and the module, Peer Mediating Instruction and Intervention (PMII) was explained and how it is seen in a classroom. According to the PMII module, “PMII is designed to increase the social engagement of learners with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) by teaching typically developing peers to initiate and maintain interactions with them.” Goals that are seen through PMII is to teach peers strategies, increase frequencies peers interact, and in the end minimizing teacher support. “Social impairment and difficulty with social reciprocity – or understanding the back-and-forth nature of social interactions – is perhaps the single most defining feature of autism” (Module, 2018). Those who have ASD are known to respond less frequently
Teachers introduce and go over a topic and then through CSTT students are given times during the week to see the same material (Harper, Maheady, 2007, 103). Through this strategy, students are able to focus on a topic or materials and go in depth on the information while using peers for support if needed. While learning about the strategy CSTT I found parts that I can see working and parts that I do not agree with/areas that may not work. First, when breaking the students up in teams, each team is supposed to have a student that is high performing, average performing, and low performing. It is broken up by the students that are high performance being separated to one team and then to the next and so on. I see an issue with this separation of the teams. Students can catch on to what is going on and can figure out if they are the high, average, or low performing student by how they are assigned to a specific group. Another issue I have with the grouping is with putting a high and low performing students together. This pairing is almost always done so the high can help the low performing student. This can become an issue with the high performing student getting confused or not understanding material because the low performing student is saying opposing views/answers. In a perfect scenario the high performing student would pull
PMII can be used for any learner but it is most effective for learners with ASD who have limited communication skills. These students rarely initiate or respond to social interactions with others. Those with ASD may not even appear to be benefitting from group work. Through the use of PMII in a classroom students are able to grow as a person as a whole when it comes to socially interacting with others. “Peer-mediated interventions are beneficial for children and youth with ASD because they increase the likelihood that learners with ASD will generalize new social skills to different activities, peers and settings” (Module,