A method for integrating an autistic child into a normal public-school classroom.

Researchers worked with one autistic kindergartener in a regular public school.

They paired the child with a trained aide for one-to-one support.

The team also taught the classroom teacher how to use praise and prompts.

They tracked social talk, hand flapping, and staying on task every day.

The child spoke more to peers and raised his hand to answer questions.

Rocking and hand flapping dropped by half during class time.

The teacher kept using the skills after the aide left.

The child stayed in the same class through first grade with no extra help.

Griffith et al. (2012) later showed that starting with easy requests and slowly adding harder ones also boosts classroom compliance for autistic kids.

Matson et al. (2008) found that principals who believe autistic students can succeed are more likely to place them in general education—this supports why the 1977 integration lasted.

Mélin et al. (2019) followed kids after low-intensity therapy and saw autism symptoms return, which seems to clash with the lasting gains here. The difference is that the 1977 study kept teacher support in place, while the 2019 study stopped therapy.

Lawson et al. (2025) tested a teacher toolkit for behavior plans and saw better teacher fidelity but mixed student gains, showing that tools alone may not match the impact of direct coaching used in 1977.

You can use this model today. Pair your student with an aide who fades out. Train the teacher on simple praise and prompts. Track daily social and stereotypy data. The gains can stick if the teacher keeps the plan alive.