The effectiveness of strategies that promote the inclusion of children with Autism in mainstream classrooms

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterised by impairments in social interaction, social communication and social imagination. Due to the pervasiveness of these difficulties, children with ASD face challenges and encounter many barriers to learning when educated within mainstream settings. Educational practitioners require considerable knowledge and specialist skills in order to respond to the needs of these children, providing individual and targeted support so that they may achieve their full educational potential.  The purpose of this small-scale project is to investigate three interventions, commonly used to support children with ASD, in terms of their efficacy for use in mainstream primary schools. Recent research studies into the use of Social Stories™, LEGO® Play and Circle of Friends® were identified and a synthesis of their methodologies and results was undertaken. Some promising results for all three strategies are found. In the case of Social Stories™, results are also found to be inconsistent and highly variable both between children and between trials, and some possible reasons for this are explored. The evidence for LEGO® Play is the most positive, with significant gains in social interaction being reported in all papers. However, for Circle of Friends® (CoF), the results indicate that, although gains in the inclusion of the focus children followed the whole class meetings, these gains were not maintained during the weekly CoF meetings. It is therefore concluded that there is no compelling evidence in support of the weekly CoF meetings at this time. The implications of all these results in terms of using these strategies in mainstream primary classrooms are discussed. The need for further research into all three interventions is highlighted and specific recommendations regarding this are made.