Interventions to facilitate social interaction for young children with autism: review of available research and recommendations for educational intervention and future research.
Blend peer play with adult teaching, and update the 2002 list by adding child-specific toys or short movement games.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lindsay (2002) read every paper she could find on helping preschoolers with autism talk and play with others.
She grouped the studies by type of help: adult-led drills, peer buddies, or child-led play.
The paper ends with a short checklist clinicians can use to pick a tactic that has at least some data behind it.
What they found
No single method won. Some kids gained words from adult drills. Others started talking only when peers showed them how.
The best-supported plans mixed two things: clear teaching steps and real play with typical kids.
R warns that most studies were tiny and lacked follow-up, so she offers a "best guess" menu, not a firm recipe.
How this fits with other research
The 2002 menu now looks basic. Watkins et al. (2019) later showed that simply adding a child’s favorite toy to peer play beats the adult-led drills R listed.
Wang et al. (2023) added a surprise: daily 90-minute active games also lift social skills, something R never mentioned.
Yet the newer work does not cancel R. Her core point—use peer plus adult tactics—still stands; the newer papers just give fresher ways to do it.
Why it matters
If you run early-intervention sessions, start with R’s quick checklist to be sure you are not guessing. Then spice it up: add peer buddies with shared toys (Watkins) or a short dance game (Shimeng). You will still be following the 2002 rule—blend teaching and real play—while using tactics that now have stronger proof.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this paper is to review the knowledge available from aggregated research (primarily through 2000) on the characteristics of social interactions and social relationships among young children with autism, with special attention to strategies and tactics that promote competence or improved performance in this area. In its commissioning letter for the initial version of this paper, the Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism of the National Research Council requested "a critical, scholarly review of the empirical research on interventions to facilitate the social interactions of children with autism, considering adult-child interactions (where information is available) as well as child-child interactions, and including treatment of [one specific question]: What is the empirical evidence that social irregularities of children with autism are amenable to remediation?" To do this, the paper (a) reviews the extent and quality of empirical literature on social interaction for young children with autism; (b) reviews existing descriptive and experimental research that may inform us of relations between autism and characteristics that support social development, and efforts to promote improved social outcomes (including claims for effectiveness for several specific types of intervention); (c) highlights some possible directions for future research; and (d) summarizes recommendations for educational practices that can be drawn from this research.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2002 · doi:10.1023/a:1020537805154