Adult interactive style and autism: reviewing the literature to inform school practice

In the past, much attention was paid to the changes in the child both professionals and parents wanted to effect and attention was focused very much on what the child needed to do to develop skills and understandings. More recently, there has been much more of a focus on thinking about how the behaviour and interactions of the adults involved with the child affects and facilitates their development. In recognition of this, some practitioners suggest that a child's education plan should have a section (perhaps entitled, Targets for adults) which states what the adults need to do to enable the child to achieve the targets listed. This paper considers what some of the major and current interventions have to say about adult interactive style and the degree of emphasis placed on this. It then shows how a set of principles (AISI) the author devised draws on the advice given by the proponents of current interventions. This illustrates how many of the interventions recommend similar practice in relation to this, despite their different rationales.