Social involvement of children with autism spectrum disorders in elementary school classrooms

• Published in: Journal of child psychology and psychiatry 2010-11, Vol.51 (11), p.1227-1234
• Main Authors: Rotheram-Fuller, Erin, Kasari, Connie, Chamberlain, Brandt, Locke, Jill
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age Factors; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Autistic children; Autistic spectrum disorders; Case-Control Studies; Child; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive - diagnosis; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive - psychology; Child psychology; Children; Classrooms; Elementary Education; Elementary School Students; Elementary Schools; Female; Friends - psychology; Friendship; Friendships; Grades (Scholastic); Humans; inclusive education; Inclusive Schools; Interpersonal Competence; Interpersonal Relations; Intervention; Male; Peer Acceptance; Peer Group; Peer relationships; Pervasive Developmental Disorders; Rejection (Psychology); Schools; Social Behavior; Social interaction; social involvement; Social Networks; Social relationships; Student Participation; Students - psychology; Students - statistics & numerical data; Young Children
• ISSN: 0021-9630; 1469-7610
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02289.x

Background:  Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are increasingly included in general education classrooms in an effort to improve their social involvement. Methods:  Seventy‐nine children with ASD and 79 randomly selected, gender‐matched peers (88.6% male) in 75 early (K‐1), middle (2nd–3rd), and late (4th–5th) elementary classrooms across 30 schools completed social network surveys examining each child’s reciprocal friendships, peer rejection, acceptance, and social involvement. Results:  Across grade levels, peers less frequently reciprocated friendships with children with ASD than students in the matched sample. While children with ASD were not more likely to be rejected by peers, they were less accepted and had fewer reciprocal friendships than matched peers at each grade level. Although 48.1% of children with ASD were involved in the social networks of their classrooms, children with ASD were more likely to be isolated or peripheral to social relationships within the classroom across all grade levels, and this difference is even more dramatic in later elementary grades. Conclusions:  In inclusive classrooms, children with ASD are only involved in peers’ social relationships about half of the time, and appear to be even less connected with increasing grade level. Promoting children with ASD’s skills in popular activities to share with peers in early childhood may be a key preventive intervention to protect social relationships in late elementary school grades.