Welcome to the Bauminger-Zviely Autism Research and Intervention Laboratory-The ARI Lab at BIU

Social – Communication Growth Via Peer Interaction

Social-communication deficit in peer relations and interaction is considered a defining characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) across the lifespan. Prof. Bauminger-Zviely’s laboratory is at the forefront of basic and applied research on the social-emotional development of children affected by ASD, exploring possible precursors, correlates, and characteristics of peer relations and developing novel manualized evidence-based social intervention. We suggest observational procedures to evaluate peer interaction, friendship, collaborative capabilities, peer talk, and social play, as well as evidenced-based intervention protocols to promote well-adjusted peer interaction spanning various ages (preschoolers, school-age) and levels of functioning (high-functioning, minimally verbal). Our interventions are carried out primarily in school settings with the goal of training professionals to be experts in helping children with ASD interact with their peers!

Prof. Nirit Bauminger-Zviely. Full Prof., PhD in Educational Psychology from UCLA, former head of the School of Education at BIU and current head of the graduate studies for autism in the faculty of education, which she also established a decade ago. Over the last two decades, Prof. Bauminger-Zviely developed multidimensional evidenced-based social intervention procedures, and measures to evaluate the autism social phenotype. Prof. Bauminger-Zviely is the author of the book "social and academic abilities in Children with HFASD," and co-author of the book "preschool peer social intervention" , she is also an author of numerous book chapters and journal articles as well as national and international presentations on the field of autism and peer relations, friendship, social intervention, social emotions, social cognition, and motor and motor coordination functioning.