Adult Interactive Style Intervention and Participatory Research Designs in Autism: Bridging the Gap between Academic Research and Practice

Regardless of their cognitive and linguistic abilities, people with autism can often find it difficult to develop basic communicative skills that are necessary to gain full control over their environment and maintain their independence. Building on the author’s own cutting-edge research, Adult Interactive Style Intervention and Participatory Research Designs in Autism examines the impact that the interactive style of neurotypical individuals could have on the spontaneous communication of children with autism.

This book provides clear and detailed guidance on how to conduct research into autism in real-world settings such as schools and homes. Kossyvaki critically evaluates a wealth of relevant case studies and focuses on a number of methodological issues that researchers are likely to face when carrying out research of this complex nature. The author walks the reader through present literature on the importance of spontaneous communication and the atypical way that this tends to develop in autism, before bringing the results of her own research to bear on the question of how the interactive styles of neurotypical individuals can impact on the spontaneous communication of people with autism.

Adult Interactive Style Intervention and Participatory Research Designs in Autism is essential reading for academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of special educational needs, inclusion, autism, research methods, and educational and clinical psychology.

Lila Kossyvaki is Lecturer in Severe Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties at the University of Birmingham. She has conducted extensive research on how home- and school-based intervention can be used to promote social communication and play skills in children with autism and learning difficulties.