Project Activities
This project will recruit adolescents with ASD and their families from a national registry and collect self-, parent- and teacher-reports through online surveys and end-of-day reports about various school experiences and academic outcomes to explore associations among social experiences and academic performance and inform future work to promote positive outcome.
Structured Abstract
Setting
Participants in this research will attend schools across the United States.
Sample
Participants will include a total of 350 adolescents in the 7th through 10th grades with a previously documented diagnosis of ASD who spend at least 60 percent of the school day in a general classroom setting, and their families and teachers.
Factors
Researchers will examine students' social experiences and identify associations with individual student characteristics (demographic factors, ASD symptoms, comorbid mental health symptoms) and school climate, as well as academic outcomes.
Research design and methods
This study will use a multi-method, multi-reporter cross-sectional design. Following an initial screening interview conducted online, parents, teachers and students will respond to online surveys and assessments. At the end of the semester in which these data are collected, families will be asked to submit the student's report card and school attendance record. The aims are to test associations between daily social experiences at school and school-based academic outcomes, associations between individual characteristics and social experiences, and school-based social experiences as mediators of the associations between individual characteristics and school outcomes.
Control condition
Due to the nature of the study, there is no control condition.
Key measures
Individual student characteristics will be measured with the Social Communication Questionnaire-Lifetime, the Social Responsiveness Scale–2nd Edition, the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised, the Child Behavior Checklist, the Teacher Report Form (internalizing and externalizing problems scales), Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-3rd Edition, and the Telehealth Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–5th Edition. The climate of each participant's school will be measured with the ED School Climate Survey. Social experiences at school will be measured with the Revised Schwartz Peer Victimization Scale, the Relationship Closeness Inventory, the Ostracism Experiences Scale for Adolescence, and a series of end-of-day reports in which adolescents describe and rate the experiences and interactions that they encountered each school day for five consecutive days. Academic outcomes and school functioning will be measured by the students' grade point averages and attendance rates, the School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire, the School Engagement Measure, and the Teacher Report Form (academic performance and academic adaptive functioning).
Data analytic strategy
All aims of this study, including mediation analyses, will be tested with ordinary least squares multiple regression models. Researchers will test associations between social experiences (peer victimization, exclusion, being ignored, interactions with friends and other students, and subjective feelings about peer interactions) and academic outcomes controlling for individual student characteristics and demographics. They will also test for associations between social experiences and each individual characteristic controlling for all others. Finally, they will test social experiences as mediators of the associations between individual characteristics and academic outcomes.
Products and publications
Products: This project will result in preliminary evidence of the associations between in-school social experiences and individual student characteristics as well as academic outcomes for adolescents with ASD. The project will also result in a final dataset to be shared, peer-reviewed publications and presentations, and additional dissemination products that reach education stakeholders such as practitioners and policymakers.
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Supplemental information
Co-Principal Investigator: Bishop, Somer
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.