There is considerable debate regarding the most appropriate and effective ways of supporting the learning of children and young people on the autism spectrum. This international review provides a synthesis of empirical research and expert evidence (dated 2002-2008) to identify best practice in educational provision for these children. Five bibliographic databases were systematically searched using clearly defined keywords, and abstracts assessed according to explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria; 92 research papers that focused on children and young people were included. Expert evidence was drawn from policy documents and government strategies, or research reports, from the UK and Ireland. Findings show that there is insufficiently strong evidence regarding the effectiveness of one type of intervention approach compared with another. A range of educational provision should be maintained in order to cater appropriately for a wide diversity of needs. Interventions most often researched were those involving intensive behavioural techniques and some studies showed these can be successful in teaching specific skills to some children. There was limited evidence regarding the needs of older children as well as consideration of educational provision more widely, including the effects of type of setting (as distinct from a specific type of intervention or learning approach). More research is needed on other types of educational interventions currently used by parents and in schools as well as greater collaboration between researchers and practitioners to establish what works best for children and young people on the autism spectrum.

In this article we argue for an interdisciplinary approach to designing interactive technology for young children on the Autistic Spectrum. We believe it key for the design process to embrace perspectives from diverse fields to arrive at a methodology, and consequently technology, that delivers satisfactory outcomes for all stakeholders involved. The ECHOES project has provided us with the opportunity to work on a technology-enhanced learning environment that supports acquisition and exploration of social skills by typically developing children and children with high-functioning autism and Asperger Syndrome. ECHOES' research methodology and the learning environment relies crucially on multi-disciplinary expertise including developmental and clinical psychology, visual arts, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, education and many other cognate disciplines. In this article, we reflect on the methods needed to develop a technology-enhanced learning environment for young users with Autism Spectrum Disorder. We identify key benefits, challenges and limitations of this approach. Although the context of ECHOES is very specific, we believe that there are a number of guidelines for the desing of technology-enhanced intervention for autism that can benefit a wider community of researchers in this emerging discipline.

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This article examines the educational efficacy of a learning environment in which children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) engage in social interactions with an artificially intelligent (AI) virtual agent and where a human practitioner acts in support of the interactions. A multi-site intervention study in schools across the UK was conducted with 29 children with ASC and learning difficulties, aged 4-14 years old. For reasons related to data completeness and amount of exposure to the AI environment, data for 15 children was included in the analysis. The analysis revealed a significant increase in the proportion of social responses made by ASC children to human practitioners. The number of initiations made to human practitioners and to the virtual agent by the ASC children also increased numerically over the course of the sessions. However, due to large individual differences within the ASC group, this did not reach significance. Although no evidence of transfer to the real-world post-test was shown, anecdotal evidence of classroom transfer was reported. The work presented in this article offers an important contribution to the growing body of research in the context of AI technology design and use for autism intervention in real school contexts. Specifically, the work highlights key methodological challenges and opportunities in this area by leveraging interdisciplinary insights in a way that (i) bridges between educational interventions and intelligent technology design practices, (ii) considers the design of technology as well as the design of its use (context and procedures) on par with one another, and (iii) includes design contributions from different stakeholders, including children with and without ASC diagnosis, educational practitioners, and researchers.

This research draws upon community of practice theory to explore the factors that enabled or hindered participation in an online 'Foundations of Communities of Practice' workshop -a course that is designed to align with Wenger's communities of practice perspective. The research used a mixed methods approach, drawing upon logon and posting data, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to explore participant experiences. The findings show that five dimensions either enabled or constrained participation. These were emotion, technology, connectivity, understanding norms and learning tensions. As enablers these dimensions led to successful participation within an online community of practice, but as constraints they led to peripheral participation. The findings highlight implications for tutors of such courses. These include the need to i) assess the technical expertise of participants, particularly when a number of different technological tools are used; ii) find ways to identify and evaluate emotional responses so learners can be supported in managing these; iii) ensure that participants understand the norms of a community and iv) develop clear induction materials and processes.

Experimental intervention studies constitute the current dominant research designs in the autism education field. Such designs are based on a 'knowledge-transfer' model of evidence-based practice in which research is conducted by researchers, and is then 'transferred' to practitioners to enable them to implement evidence-based interventions. While these research designs contribute important knowledge, they lead to a gap between what the research evidence may prescribe and what happens in practice, with a concomitant disparity between the priorities of researchers and practitioners. This paper discusses findings from the ESRC-funded 'SHAPE' project, which adopted a different model of evidence-based practice, focusing on knowledge co-construction. Pupils (N = 8), teachers (N = 10), a speech and language therapist and a parent in three different school communities investigated creative ways in which children's social communication skills could be enhanced through technology use. Through a participatory methodology, digital stories were used as a method to enable engagement with the practical realities of the classroom and empower practitioners to construct and share their own authentic narratives. Participants articulated precise knowledge about the learning opportunities afforded to them and their pupils through quality interactions that were mediated by the technologies, as evidenced through digital stories. The SHAPE project shows that it is feasible to develop methodologies that enable genuine knowledge co-construction with school practitioners, parents and pupils. Such co-construction could offer realistic opportunities for pedagogical emancipation and innovation in evidence-based practice as an alternative to the currently dominant and narrow model of knowledge transfer.

Storytelling is a powerful means of expression especially for voices that may be difficult to hear or represent in typical ways. This paper reports and reflects on our experiences of co-creating digital stories with school practitioners in a project focusing on embedding innovative technologies for children on the autism spectrum in classroom practice. The digital stories were short films or narrated sequences of slides and images that conveyed key views about experiences and practices with or around the technologies. The creation of the digital stories aimed to empower schools and individual teachers to construct and share their own authentic narratives and to build case examples of creative technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Through focusing on our experiences with one of the schools, we examine the use of digital stories as a method for enabling knowledge co-creation with practitioners and we discuss the evidential potential of digital stories. We argue that the co-creation of digital stories enabled teachers to find their voice in critiquing the usability, usefulness, efficacy and flexibility of the technologies. Furthermore, the stories, both the process of their creation and the final artefacts, provided a concrete grounding for knowledge co-creation about teaching practices and authentic technologyenhanced learning.

This article draws together findings from expert evidence and empirical studies to identify the preconditions for developing inclusive learning environments for young children on the autism spectrum. It concludes that in order to develop 'best practice', practitioners need to adapt interventions to the unique needs of the individual child, work in partnership with parents and other professionals, create enabling environments and be informed by a developmental approach to learning. Practitioners need to have knowledge of the autism spectrum and how it impacts on the child. Careful assessment of the individual child is also crucial. Finally, it is important to ensure that these young children receive direct teaching in communication and language, social understanding and skills, as well as learning with and through peers.