Inclusion of autistic children in extra-curricular activities
Extra-curricular children’s clubs provide societal value to children and families (e.g., providing childcare). A recent report by the Social Mobility Commission highlighted involvement in these activities creates positive outcomes: building confidence, extending social networks, and developing new skills. However, there is some evidence of reduced participation in extra-curricular activities among autistic children, as well as other neurodivergent children (e.g. ADHD). It is unclear why this is.
Examining Inclusion in Activities
Some prior research examining the exclusion of neurodivergent children has focused on things relating to the children and their families, rather than considering the aspects of the activity itself. This project instead asked what extra-activity providers can do to be more inclusive. By bringing together Lara's hands-on experience of engaging autistic children in extra-curricular activities and Sophie’s expertise in the neuroscience of engaging attention and neurodiversity, we sought to identify the factors that hinder and facilitate the engagement (and inclusion) of autistic children. Our findings will ultimately feed into a set of guidelines we are developing for extra-curricular activity providers on how to engage neurodivergent children.
Early Research Findings
In the early stages of the project, Sophie observed two of Lara’s workshops and, drawing on her knowledge of the scientific attention literature, noted a wide variety of factors that might support attentional engagement. During the course of the project we further discussed these factors in small focus groups with both parents of autistic children and autistic adults, before conducting a large-scale questionnaire study to test our ideas across a larger sample of parents of neurodivergent and neurotypical children.
Preliminary Findings
This study is still in progress, the preliminary findings confirm the experiences of exclusion. For example, our data so far shows that autistic children are substantially more likely to have participated in a ‘taster’ session for an extra-curricular activity before deciding not to proceed (this was reported by 75% of parents of autistic children versus 42% of parents of neurotypical children). Some of the reasons mentioned include:
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The child not finding the activity engaging or interesting (this was the most commonly cited factor, mentioned in the majority of cases for both groups)
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The child not liking aspects of the environment (e.g. noise, lighting, group size) - this was mentioned more in relation to exclusion of autistic children (67%) versus neurotypical children (13%).
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Practical factors (e.g. time, location or cost of class) and social factors were also mentioned fairly often, with a trend towards practical factors being more common in neurotypical children and social factors more common in autistic children.
Our full analysis will look in more depth at these patterns of participation, as well as parents' ratings of the extent to which a large number of factors facilitate or hinder inclusion.
What Parents Suggest for Inclusivity
Below are some of the suggestions made by parents in response to the question, “What is one thing extracurricular activity providers could do to make their activities more inclusive for your child?”