Intervention and education programs for autistic individuals have been greatly informed by the medical model of disease/disability. Under this model, autism is seen as something to be fixed or remediated, and interventions have often focused on reducing autistic traits in an effort to get the autistic person to appear more “typical.” Autistic advocates have denounced this, and there is still much debate on what kind of interventions are best for autistic individuals. A viable alternative to the medical model is the neurodiversity approach, where neurological differences such as autism are seen as a valuable contribution to human diversity and should be accepted. Though it has been argued that early intervention can in fact be compatible with the neurodiversity approach, the field still has much work to truly become neurodiversity-affirming. This dissertation discusses three ways to ensure interventions move toward being more neurodiversity-affirming: considering intervention social validity (i.e., acceptability) from the autistic perspective, gathering feedback on interventions from autistic adults, and assessing professionals’ attitudes toward neurodiversity.

The first paper herein is a systematic review of social validity assessment in Pivotal Response Treatment research, with an emphasis on assessment of the autistic point of view. The second is a qualitative investigation of 214 autistic adults’ feedback on common intervention goals for young autistic children. The third paper presents the development and validation of an instrument designed to measure professionals’ attitudes toward neurodiversity. Findings from the first two studies suggest that autistic perspectives need to be included much more frequently when designing and implementing interventions, and that professionals need to consider the importance of developing autistic identity, autonomy, and self-advocacy skills. Finally, the neurodiversity attitudes questionnaire (NDAQ) presents a valid way of measuring professionals’ attitudes such that neurodiversity training needs can be assessed, which will hopefully ultimately lead to more neurodiversity-friendly interventions.

Due to Covid-19, there have been extreme changes to the educational landscape for students.These changes to instruction not only impacted children, but their parents as well as they took on greater responsibilities for instruction. This presented challenges for many students, but particularly for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Reaction to these changes and the format of remote learning resulted in resistance to engage with remote learning, presenting difficulties for both student and parent. However, these challenges may be alleviated with appropriate parent support in motivational strategies to implement during remote learning. Using a multiple baseline across participants design, the current study sought to investigate whether coaching in Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and Growth Mindset delivered in a remote format would result in positive outcomes for students and their parents. Participants included 3 parent-student dyads. Parents were provided with education and feedback in implementing motivational strategies for remote learning. Results indicated positive outcomes for both students (increased engagement, decreased maladaptive behavior) and parents (competent implementation of motivational strategies; decreased stress). Additionally, parents reported the coaching and remote format to be socially valid. This research may help to better understand how online formats can be used to support parents during times where they are unable to access in-person resources. Additionally, this study may illuminate further ways that PRT and Growth Mindset can be applied to motivate and increase engagement for students with ASD.

Within teacher education programs, the preparation of general and special educators has often been separated due to differences in the skills each is expected to master (Pugach, Blanton, & Boveda, 2014). With the mandate of inclusion in the IDEA (20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(5)(A)), as well as the increasing implementation of inclusive practices in schools, there has been a desire to shift towards greater integration of general and special education teachers, both in training and in service (Pugach, et al., 2014). This study examines responses to a collaborative project completed by pre-service general and special education elementary teachers. Pre-service teachers took a course together on inclusion and worked cooperatively to implement an intervention and complete progress monitoring for focal students. The course and implementation assignment were designed to support teacher collaboration. Coding data from the pre-service teacher’s implementation assignment and reported student outcomes and individual interviews show the positive impact of the collaborative experience on pre-service teachers ability to align interventions with student needs as well as pre-service teachers’ satisfaction with collaboration and desire to engage in it in the future.