11/19/2023 0 Comments Folio books favoriteAdditionally, Hodgetts highlights that there was a large effect size, indicating that the intervention could have a big impact. The results showed that autistic campers within the intervention group had more instances of engagement with their peers. Videos were captured of the interactions and the researchers watched them in minute-by-minute increments, coding them with markers that indicated when the child was engaged with and included, and when they weren’t. To gauge the intervention’s success, the researchers used an adapted version of the Playground Observation of Peer Engagement. It also incorporated the child’s strengths and interests so peers were able to recognize similarities, and offered peers specific strategies to engage.įor example, if a particular autistic child had a propensity to encroach too much on a peer’s space when they wanted to play, the script would include letting the peers know what that tendency to get too close meant from the autistic child’s perspective and how to best respond in a way that made everyone feel comfortable and included. The word autism was specifically used, naming the diagnosis, and context was provided on characteristics and ways in which the autistic child may behave or communicate differently. This also meant the same script used in the day camp could be adapted and used elsewhere, Hodgetts notes.Įach script had four main components. “And kids deserve to be engaged with and included wherever they go.” “You don’t have highly trained researchers and health-care providers or educators everywhere that kids go in life,” says Hodgetts. The intervention - a short script crafted in collaboration with the autistic children’s parents and some of the children themselves - needed no specialized training or qualifications to deliver. We overlook how capable peers are at stepping up.” “I think often we’re so focused on the autistic kids at school, camp, wherever, that we forget to use the peers. The intervention within the study viewed peers’ lack of awareness and understanding about autism as equally important to target, explains Hodgetts. Many existing interventions are focused almost solely on the autistic children and ways to alter their behaviour so they better “fit in” amongst their peers. Hodgetts and her collaborators also took a different approach with their intervention. “For our study, we were really subscribing to a sense of belonging - someone belongs as they are, for who they are.” Most other studies don’t evaluate inclusion simply because it’s a tough parameter to track, and there are many conceptualizations of what it means. “It kind of comes down to the fact that we all want connection,” says Hodgetts, an associate professor in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and member of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute. A short and simple intervention that needs no specialized training to deliver could help encourage understanding and engagement with autistic children in recreational settings like day camps, according to a recent study led by researchers at the University of Alberta.Īutistic children have a higher risk of experiencing social exclusion than children with other diagnoses, despite research showing that they do want to feel included, explains Sandra Hodgetts, the study’s lead author.
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