Academic and Related Skills Interventions for Autism: a 20-Year Systematic Review of Single-Case Research

This systematic literature review examines single-case intervention research targeting academic and related skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in school settings. Fifty-four studies published between 1995 and 2014 met inclusion criteria. Tau-U was calculated for each study to examine the effectiveness of interventions. The mean score across all the studies was high (M Tau-U=0.78), but ranged from weak to very high with scores between 0.15 and 1.00. The analysis demonstrated that school-based interventions were generally effective at improving the academic and related skills of students with ASD. The authors summarized some critical gaps in the research, and reviewed the quality of the research designs.