Lockdown Drills and Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Practitioner Confidence, Experiences, and Perceptions.
Staff feel shaky about lockdown drills with young autistic pupils—frequent, well-structured practice is the quickest fix.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Jackson et al. (2025) asked teachers and aides how they feel about running lockdown drills with young children who have autism.
The team used an online survey and follow-up interviews. Staff shared how often they practice drills and how confident they feel.
What they found
Most staff said they are not confident teaching lockdown steps to these children.
The more times a class had practiced, the more secure the adult felt. Still, many wanted extra training.
How this fits with other research
Dickson et al. (2017) showed that Behavioral Skills Training works great for neurotypical kindergarteners: after a few short lessons the kids stayed quiet and followed every step. The new survey extends that line by revealing that the same drills feel much harder when the pupils have autism.
Welsh et al. (2019) found mainstream teachers already doubt their skills with autism behaviors. The lockdown study echoes that worry, but shifts the focus from repetitive behaviors to safety drills.
Abadir et al. (2021) proved four children with autism could learn abduction-prevention through short video clips and quick rehearsals. Their success hints that similar brief, visual methods might close the confidence gap A et al. uncovered.
Why it matters
If staff feel unprepared, drills may be skipped or done poorly. You can borrow the Dickson BST script, trim the language, add visuals or video models, and rehearse in tiny chunks. Track each trial and praise calm, quiet behavior. More practice cycles should raise both child performance and adult confidence, keeping everyone safer during a real lockdown.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Lockdown drill practice is part of the "new normal" in schools for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and educational practitioners in K-12 schools across the United States. These drills place a tremendous amount of responsibility on practitioners (i.e., teachers, paraprofessionals) that is beyond the scope of their training and typical requirements of their position in the classroom. Lockdown drills also require young children with ASD to engage in actions that are inherently hard for most young children but could be especially difficult for children with ASD who need individualized support to develop the executive function and self-regulation skills to participate in drills successfully. This study investigates practitioners' training experiences and perceptions of perceived confidence in teaching young children with ASD lockdown drills. Practitioner's self-efficacy was measured through survey analysis and their perceptions and experiences were investigated through individual interviews. Results indicated low rates of confidence to teach lockdown drills to young children with ASD and higher rates of confidence were correlated with more drill practice. Themes gleaned from interview data revealed varied training and practice experiences for children and practitioners, general characteristics of ASD that help or hinder children's participation, connections between these characteristics and aspects of lockdown drills that make them difficult to teach, and identification of practitioner responsibilities beyond following protocols.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1177/0741932516686059