The Science of Making Friends for Autistic Youth: Lessons from the UCLA PEERS Program

Learn research updates on evidence-based strategies to support adolescents and young adults develop social skills that encourage lasting friendships.

The speaker:

Dr. Elizabeth A. Laugeson is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and is a licensed clinical psychologist.  Dr. Laugeson is the Founder and Director of the UCLA PEERS Clinic, which is an outpatient hospital-based program providing parent-assisted social skills training for individuals from preschool to adulthood. Dr. Laugeson is also the Director for the UCLA Tarjan Center, which is a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, and Program Director for the Predoctoral Psychology Internship Program in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities at UCLA. Dr. Laugeson has trained tens of thousands of mental health professionals, educators, and families worldwide, and is dedicated to developing and testing evidence-based treatments to improve social skills across the lifespan and across the globe. As one of the only empirically supported and internationally recognized social skills programs for neurodivergent youth, her program is currently used in over 150 countries and has been translated into over a dozen languages.