Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) usually face complex social challenges in schools. Although placing children with ASD with their typically developing peers is a common practice in public school settings, inclusion alone may not be sufficient to increase social ability. Studies of included children with ASD demonstrate that they have poorer social outcomes than their typically developing peers, and these differences worsen with age. Interventions to address social challenges typically occur outside of school settings and rarely generalize. This symposium will address these challenges by: a) presenting data from measures of social connectedness and peer engagement of elementary aged children with ASD and their typical classmates in public schools; b) exploring the role of age and gender in these connections; and c) comparing changes in peer engagement in response to different interventions. These data represent the large multi-site efforts of researchers engaged in community-based research designed to introduce effective social skills interventions and testing meaningful social outcome measures in community settings.