Autism research and Intervention Laboratory-The ARI Lab

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

Social-communication deficit in peer relations and interaction is considered a defining characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) across the life span. 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 as well developing novel manualized evidenced – based social intervention. We suggest observational procedures to evaluate peer interaction, friendship and 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 level of functioning (high-functioning, minimally verbal). Our interventions are carried out primarily in school settings with the goal of training professionals to be experst in helping children with ASD to interact with their peers!

We provide help on:
1. Designing community-based social intervention
2. Training and supervising the implementation of social intervention
3. Implementation and development of measures to evaluate social-emotional functioning and related outcome measures for interventions  


Prof. Nirit Bauminger-Zviely

Prof. Nirit Bauminger-Zviely. Full Prof., PhD in Educational Psychology from UCLA, and former head of the School of Education at BIU and current head of the graduate studies for ASD in the school of education, which she also established 10 years ago. Over the last two decades Prof. Bauminger-Zviely developed multidimensional evidenced-based social intervention as well as assessment procedures and scales to evaluate the ASD social phenotype. Prof. Bauminger-Zviely is the author the book "social and academic abilities in children with HFASD", and the author of numerous book chapters and journal articles as well as national and international presentations on the field of ASD and peer relations, friendship, social intervention, social emotions, social cognition and social commination.

Graduate Program for Autism Studies

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Research

Our lab research is focused on the social-emotional development of children affected by ASD, exploring possible precursors, correlates, and characteristics of peer relations as well developing novel manualized evidenced – based social intervention.

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Intervention

Evidenced – based social intervention protocols to enhance peer interaction spanning various ages and functioning level.



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Evaluation

Observational procedures to evaluate peer interaction, friendship and collaborative capabilities, peer talk and social play to provide comprehensive social-emotional evaluation and related outcome measures for interventions.

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