How Autistic Students’ Voices Feature in Peer-Mediated Interventions: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Guided by Lundy's (2007) Model of Participation, this scoping review is structured around the four elements of space, voice, audience, and influence. This review aims to investigate the methods used to capture the perspectives of school-aged autistic students regarding their experiences with peer-mediated interventions (PMIs) implemented in general education settings. Additionally, autistic voices are synthesised to provide insight into thoughts, feelings, and views about these interventions. Finally, how autistic students’ views can be incorporated into intervention procedures is extracted and summarised.

Results of the current review indicate that a range of methods, including observations, questionnaires, self-reports, meetings, and interviews, were used to capture the voices of autistic students across various components of PMIs during implementation. Student voice was coded and then categorised into seven domains: students’ preferences and interests, PMI components, engagement, emotion, perceived benefit, willingness to participate in future interventions, and friendship. Some studies used these voices to inform intervention design, goal setting, and ongoing adjustments, enabling the interventions to be tailored to students’ individual needs.

In summary, this review summarised the methods used to capture students’ views, classified their views into meaningful domains, and identified practical approaches for incorporating these views into the design of PMIs. These findings serve as a guide for valuing students’ voices and fostering more inclusive educational practices within classrooms and research. Additionally, this review identified several limitations, including limited representation of female students, preschoolers and kindergarten students due to small sample sizes in these populations, as well as limited student voice in studies where academic skills were targeted as dependent variables. These are considerations for future research in this area.