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Transitioning to a new school is often challenging for students with autism spectrum disorder. Few studies have examined the transition needs of students with autism spectrum disorder or the benefits of specific supports. This review synthesizes research findings on the difficulties that school transitions pose for students with autism spectrum disorder and their parents and teachers, and the strategies used to support students and parents during school transition. The review included 27 studies (10 examining the transition to primary school, 17 the transition to secondary school), with data from 443 students with autism spectrum disorder, 453 parents, and 546 teachers, across four continents (North America, Europe, Africa, and Australia). Studies reported that children with autism spectrum disorder struggled with anxiety and increased social pressure, their parents felt overwhelmed with complex placement decisions and worried about the well-being of their children, and teachers strove to provide appropriate supports to their students with autism spectrum disorder, often with inadequate resources. Findings indicated that the most useful strategies involved helping the student adjust to the new school setting, individualizing transition supports, clarifying the transition process for parents, and fostering communication both between the sending and receiving schools, and school and home.

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Objective: States in the United States differ in how they determine special education eligibility for autism services. Few states include an autism-specific diagnostic tool in their evaluation. In research, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS for first edition, ADOS-2 for second edition) is considered the gold-standard autism assessment. The purpose of this study was to estimate the proportion of children with an educational classification of autism who exceed the ADOS/ADOS-2 threshold for autism spectrum (concordance rate).Method: Data were drawn from four school-based studies across two sites (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and San Diego, California). Participants comprised 627 children (ages 2-12 years; 83% male) with an autism educational classification. Analyses included 1) calculating the concordance rate between educational and ADOS/ADOS-2 classifications, and 2) estimating the associations between concordance and child's cognitive ability, study site, and ADOS/ADOS-2 administration year using logistic regression.Results: More (97.5%) San Diego participants (all assessed with the ADOS-2) met ADOS/ ADOS-2 classification than did Philadelphia participants assessed with the ADOS-2 (92.2%) or ADOS (82.9%). Children assessed more recently were assessed with the ADOS-2; this group was more likely to meet ADOS/ADOS-2 classification than the group assessed a longer time ago with the ADOS. Children with higher IQ were less likely to meet ADOS/ADOS-2 classification.Conclusions: Most children with an educational classification of autism meet ADOS/ADOS-2 criteria, but results differ by site and also by ADOS version and/or recency of assessment. Educational classification may be a reasonable but imperfect measure to include children in community-based trials.