Purpose: This study aims to illustrate how environmental systems shape the peer interactions of an autistic student within the classroom. Method: Drawing on the bioecological model of human development, this situated discourse analysis used thematic coding and microanalysis to examine data from semistructured interviews and 10 sessions of direct classroom observations of a 9-year-old autistic student and his classroom communication partners. Results: Convergent data across participants, time, and data sources revealed the following systemic influences on peer interaction: predominant medicalized view of autism (macrosystem), educational practices (exosystem), misaligned roles across adults and peers in the classroom (mesosystem), and multimodal opportunities for direct interaction that were supported by objects and physical contact and inhibited by rapid pacing (microsystem). Conclusions: Findings illustrate the environmental complexities associated with the development of peer interactions for autistic students. We offer explicit clinical implications for how environmental factors can be addressed in the school-based eligibility determination process and in the Individualized Education Program.

Early Childhood Development policy in Chile: Progress and pitfalls supporting children with developmental disabilities toward school readiness

The discussion about the words and concepts related to autism is alive in the scholarly community, tacitly or explicitly. Contrasting ideologies linked to the medical model and neurodiversity paradigm underlie terminology referring to autism. The present proof-of-concept study conducted a critical discourse analysis of the terminology (i.e., microstructure) used to describe autism in two academic journals across four decades. Specifically, we utilized the framework provided by Bottema-Beutel et al. (2021) to analyze 35 articles published in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and Autism. These articles were reviewed with a focus on terminology used to describe the concept of autism, autistic individuals, and nonautistic individuals. The main findings support the feasibility of this proof-of-concept study. They revealed a predominant use of potentially ableist language across the four decades and a slow incorporation of alternative terms usually linked with more inclusive language in the last decade. We suggest that this change has been driven by the autistic community in a process of democratizing the role of experts. Accordingly, we recommend including autistic individuals' choices to designate their community.

Autistic children often experience eating difficulties due to sensory processing, food selectivity, and other eating behaviors. As a result, the feeding process can be particularly challenging for caregivers and professionals in healthcare and educational settings. This scoping review describes interventions that address feeding difficulties, focused on improving food acceptance and reducing challenging eating-related behavior in autistic children under 6 years. The review was conducted and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. We searched the PubMed, Web of Science (WOS), and PsycINFO databases, as well as manually examined reference lists, to identify relevant articles. Nineteen studies were selected by two independent reviewers for inclusion in the review. Among the selected studies, a variety of effective feeding strategies were categorized into three groups: applied behavior analysis (ABA)-based interventions, a combination of ABA-based strategies with others, and emerging strategies beyond ABA. These interventions have been reported to increase the acceptance of foods and reduce challenging mealtime behaviors of autistic children. Future research should focus on developing comprehensive interventions to improve the quality of life of autistic children, their families, and their communities.

Purpose: This mixed-methods study examined the effect of a supports-based intervention on the interactions between John, a 9-year-old minimally speaking autistic student with access to a speech-generating augmentative and alternative communication device, and nonautistic peers in the classroom.Method: We used a single-case experimental ABAB design to evaluate the relation between provision of social supports and the frequency of communicative offers between John and one nonautistic peer, Ethan. In addition, we integrated interview data and situated discourse analyses involving a variety of adult and child participants to illustrate the nature of peer interactions both before and during provision of social supports.Results: In summary, visual inspection of the single-case data supported a functional relation of moderate effect size between the provision of social support and an increased frequency of communicative offers between John and Ethan. Results from the discourse analysis suggested that social supports led to the (a) emergence of completed turns across peers, (b) flexible use of multimodal communicative resources, and (c) movement toward egalitarian interactions.Conclusions: This study is one of the first to provide experimental evidence for a supports-based approach to peer interactions involving a minimally verbal autistic student. Clinical implications focus on encouraging flexible multimodality and adopting a strength-based approach that fosters autistic sociality.

IntroductionAutistic individuals have been reported to show differences in acoustic patterns of voice, primarily in adults and school-age children. Preschool-aged autistic children remain comparatively understudied. This study compared acoustic voice parameters between autistic and neurotypical preschool children.MethodsA between-groups design was employed to assess acoustic patterns of voice in 53 Spanish-speaking preschoolers (34 neurotypical; 19 autistic children; ages 3;0–5;11). Voice data were collected during a 20-minute free-play interaction using the Advanced Voice Monitor. Spontaneous speech was segmented into 50-ms voiced frames, and five acoustic measures—fundamental frequency (F0), sound pressure level (SPL), cepstral peak prominence (CPP), spectral tilt (TL*), and H1–H2—were extracted. Linear mixed-effects models were fitted with Group, Sex, and Age as fixed effects and Participant as a random intercept to assess between-group differences while accounting for individual variability.ResultsA significant main effect of Group was observed for CPP, with autistic children showing lower values compared with neurotypical peers. No significant group differences emerged for F0, SPL, H1–H2, or TL*.ConclusionThis study provides acoustic voice data for an understudied population and demonstrates the feasibility of accelerometer-based voice monitoring during spontaneous speech interactions in autistic preschool children. These objective acoustic measures collected using child-friendly technology may contribute to scalable approaches for characterizing early vocal patterns in autistic communication.