Schools at the centre of educational research in autism: possibilities, practices and promises.
Treat the classroom as your lab—test interventions where kids already live six hours a day.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Parsons et al. (2013) wrote a narrative review. They asked why most autism intervention studies still happen in labs or clinics.
The authors argue schools are untapped research labs. Kids with autism spend six hours a day there, yet we test strategies elsewhere.
What they found
The paper does not give new data. It makes a case: move intervention research into everyday classrooms.
The authors say schools offer real-life noise, peers, and schedules. Findings there will match where teachers actually work.
How this fits with other research
Kasari et al. (2013), published the same year, says the same thing. Both papers call for classroom-validated autism work.
McGarty et al. (2018) echoes the plea five years later. Little has changed; most evidence is still preschool- or clinic-based.
Brinton et al. (1996) sounds like it disagrees. That review warns full inclusion lacks proof. The clash is only on the surface. Sarah et al. want studies done in schools, not blanket inclusion. Good research can happen in both inclusive and separate rooms.
Why it matters
Stop shipping kids to clinics for every pilot study. Run your next social-skills or self-monitoring trial right in the student’s classroom. Use the teacher, the peers, and the daily schedule that already exist. You will get data that transfer without extra training.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A challenge for current intervention developers is the transfer of positive interventions into everyday school settings. Most efficacy studies continue to be tested in controlled laboratory or clinical settings and very rarely in schools where children spend most of their time. We have limited knowledge of how laboratory-based studies would fare in a school setting, or whether studies that are tested first in schools can be sustained in these settings. The goal of increasing school-based intervention studies for children with an autism spectrum disorder was the primary aim of a special session at the 2011 International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) conference,1 a meeting that led directly to this special issue. The meeting reflected a growing awareness in the autism field that there remains a substantial gap between research and practice in real-world classrooms (Reichow et al., 2008) and a considerable lack of involvement from teachers and practitioners in intervention research generally (Parsons et al., 2011). Beyond the obvious advantages of implementing effective interventions into the school settings where children spend their time, thus increasing the likely exposure to any given intervention, schools also offer great diversity. Schools may be the perfect laboratory as nearly all children go to school; therefore, conducting research in school settings can increase research samples … <br/><br/>
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2013 · doi:10.1177/1362361313483624