1. How will I know if my child is eligible to participate?
  • There is a required initial intake appointment for all interested teens. There is a limited enrollment for PEERS® and EFFECT.  Both programs are designed for high school students with social communication and/or executive function difficulties who are college-bound. In order to make sure our programs are a good fit for you teen, they must be accepted into the program. 
  • Please read the following PEERS case history form:​
2. Is parent involvement required? 
  • ​Yes, parent participation is required in PEERS®. A large portion of the program is dependent upon the parents learning how to help facilitate the skills their child is learning. For EFFECT, parent participation is not required, but recommended.  The activities and accountability of the student is contingent on how the parent is able to know what is being worked on and how to follow up.
3. When and where does PEERS® or EFFECT meet?
  • The PEERS® program is 16-weeks, 90-minutes each if run in the UMD academic year - for example fall semester, September to early December. For PEERS®, parents and teens meet on mutually-agreed upon evenings from 6-7:30 pm. The days change depending on our mutually-agreed upon PEERS® coach and parents' schedule of availability.
  • The EFFECT program is 12-weeks (Spring college semester) and 6-weeks (Summer) and the days/times of the group and individual sessions are contingent on mutually-agreed upon times as well.
  • If enrollment is low (fewer than 4 high school teens in any given semester), the EFFECT and PEERS programs may not run.
  • Please note that for PEERS®,  3-4 of the 16 weeks the parents and teens will meet twice weekly in order to fit all of the lessons into the college semester.  ​
  • All sessions occur in the Lefrak building at the University of Maryland Hearing and Speech Clinic in College Park, MD. 
  • Please email [email protected] for start/end dates.
4. Is PEERS® or EFFECT offered during the summer or on the weekends?
  • Yes, PEERS® and EFFECT are currently offered during UMD's summer session 1 (end of May - early July) and parent/teen groups are conducted twice weekly (one virtual and one in-person at UMD). 
5. What will my teen learn from PEERS®?
  • Conversational skills
  • Strategies for handling peer pressure
  • Appropriate use of humor
  • Electronic communication
  • How to handle teasing
  • Peer entry and existing skills
  • How to handle bullying
  • Arguments and disagreements with peers
  • Good sportsmanship
  • Having appropriate get-togethers with friends
6. What will my teen learn from EFFECT?
  • Baseline measures will be given to determine what executive functioning and meta-cognitive skills will be targeted
  • These skills could include, but are not limited to:  Time estimation, prioritization, planning/organizing, time management, task initiation/completion and problem solving
7. Are the PEERS® and EFFECT programs considered therapy?
  • PEERS® is not a program that provides any form of direct speech-language pathology therapy. It is an evidence-based curriculum where teens and parents are taught ecologically valid social skills (those behaviors exhibited by socially accepted peers). For therapy inquiries, please contact our Hearing and Speech Clinic (information is presented on the next page). However, EFFECT does include individual and group work whereby, personalized goals and objectives will be targeted.

8. Are these programs willing to travel to schools?
  • The UMD Teen PEERS® program classes are only held at the University of Maryland campus in College Park, Maryland.