Educators apply new teaching strategies despite initial attributions of autistic students' controllability of their behaviors.

Autistic children are less likely to be jointly engaged with a play partner than nonautistic children, negatively impacting social communication development. Promoting joint engagement during play can be an important target for educators of autistic students, but educator perceptions of autistic students may affect their interactions with students. This secondary data analysis investigated educator perceptions of the behaviors of their autistic students, their relationship on educator behavior, and their relationship on the implementation of an intervention promoting joint engagement.

Super responders: Predicting language gains from JASPER among limited language children with autism spectrum disorder.

Early intervention can provide a great benefit for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, no single intervention is effective for all children. Even when an intervention is effective overall, individual child response varies.

Supporting peer engagement for low-income preschool students with autism spectrum disorder during academic instruction: A pilot randomized trial.

Children with autism spectrum disorder attending special education preschool classrooms may not receive support that addresses their core challenges, such as engagement and social communication. There are interventions designed to target these core challenges, like the play-based intervention known as Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation. Embedding strategies from an intervention like Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation into more traditional academic activities can help teachers target engagement and social communication throughout the school day.

Developmental screening and early intervention in a childcare setting for young children at risk for autism and other developmental delays: A feasibility trial.

Efforts to decrease disparity in diagnosis and treatment for under-resourced children with developmental delays, such as autism spectrum disorder, have led to increased interest in developing programs in community settings. One potential setting that has already demonstrated feasibility in conducting universal screening is the childcare setting. The current study conducted developmental screening in a total of 116 children ages 16-80 months of age in an urban low-income community childcare center.