Social Participation of Children with Autism in an Inclusive Educational Environment

Abstract

The aim of the article is to substantiate a three-level conceptual model of factors shaping the social participation of children with autism spectrum disorder within an inclusive educational environment, developed through the systematization of current domestic and international scholarship. The study relies on theoretical methods, namely analysis, synthesis, comparison, and generalization of scientific approaches to the problem of social participation among children with autism spectrum disorder; the corpus of sources was assembled according to principles close to scoping-review methodology, drawing on eighteen sources published between 2010 and 2025. The content of three levels of factors that determine a child's social participation within an educational institution is disclosed. The individual level is characterized, encompassing symptom severity, communicative capacity, self-regulation, and sensory features of the child. The interactional-environmental level is examined, including the quality of teacher-child relationships, peer attitudes, classroom climate, and the adaptation of the learning environment according to universal design for learning principles. The support-and-intervention level is systematized, uniting evidence-based practices such as the Picture Exchange Communication System, Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication-Handicapped Children, augmentative and alternative communication tools, peer-mediated interventions, and role-simulation methods for modeling social situations. The scientific novelty consists in proposing, for the first time, an integrated three-level model of social-participation factors for children with autism spectrum disorder that combines international evidence-based experience with the specifics of Ukrainian inclusive education under the New Ukrainian School reform. The practical significance lies in the potential use of the model by teachers, practical psychologists, and specialists of inclusive resource centers when diagnosing barriers to a child's social participation and designing an individual development program.