Autism Research Recruitment -- Friendship Study

[Guest guest]

We are inviting children with ASD, their parents and their typically developing

peers to participate in interviews about making and maintaining friends. Through

these one-on-one interviews we want to learn about how children with an ASD

think about making and maintaining friendships. We would like to know how they

define " friend " . How they know when a person wants to be their friend and how

they let another person know when they want to be their friend. We want to know

how they think people meet friends, and what needs to be done to keep a

friendship going over time. Participants do not have to have been successful in

making friends or keeping friends to be eligible to participate in this project.

We want to learn what parents think about their child with ASD's friends and the

role the parent plays in the friendship making process. Finally, we want to

obtain information from typically developing children so we can see how the

responses provided by the children with ASD are similar to, and/or different

from, the responses of the typically developing children.

Who will participate in the interviews?

People who want to participate must be:

& #61607; Either a person with an ASD, the parent of a person with an ASD or a

typically developing peer of a person with an ASD,

& #61607; Between the ages of 8 and 12, for the children with ASD and the

typically developing peers, or be over 18, for the parents,

& #61607; Fluent in English and speak English as his or her primary language

How will participants be involved in the study?

Participants will take part in 1 hour-long interview. This interview will take

place via Skype (a free online video call program). The interview will be

conducted by a researcher who has experience with individuals with ASD and with

using interviews for research purposes.

If you are interested:

Please contact:

n Finke, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

308 Ford Building, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA 16802.

E-Mail: enh109@...

Phone:

*This Project has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board

for the Protection of Human Subjects at The Pennsylvania State University. All

procedures will be explained fully, and informed consent will be received from

all participants before any research activities begin.