Emotion-based Social Skills Training (EBSST) is a child, parent, and teacher intervention that aims to teach children with Autism about emotional and social skills through the development of a common language between children, their parents, and teachers, building better emotional attunement between children and the adults who support them, and appropriate scaffolds for social and emotional skills in home and school environments. EBSST also aims to promote the mental health of children with Autism.

EBSST was first devised in 2004 by Dr Michelle Wong and her research team at the Children's Hospital at Westmead and has since been further developed evaluated in two pilot studies and a randomized-controlled trial.

Two EBSST curricula have been developed:

(1) EBSST for Children with High Functioning Autism and Asperger's Syndrome, and

(2) EBSST for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Mild Intellectual Disability.

EBSST is based on theoretical models of social and emotional development and incorporates strategies including video modeling, written and video social stories, visual cues, and parent and teacher self-evaluation and monitoring skills.

The EBSST in Schools project is a partnership project between the Children's Hospital at Westmead and Department of Education and Training (DET). The project aims to deliver a research-based intervention to support the social emotional development and mental health of students with Autism in schools through the training of School Counselors as EBSST Group Facilitators. It is anticipated that the first child, parent and teacher EBSST sessions will be run in DET schools in January 2010.