Peer mediation to enhance classroom engagement of a child with ASD: A case study

Students with autism are increasingly being placed inclusive setting for the purpose of social integration. However, a problem often faced among children with autism is their non or disengagement in their environment. Engagement is one of the predictors of successful academic and unconstrained social outcomes. Therefore, finding ways on how to assist the children with autism to be engaged in a mainstream set-up is a must. This case study was conducted to identify the engagement in selected classroom behaviors of a child with autism (CWA). Based on informal interviews of teachers and document analysis, the selected behaviors that impede the engagement of the child are initiating, response, and eye contact. Peer mediated type intervention such as the Buddy Skills is employed to determine if peers can be a possible agent to increase the level of engagement of the target child. The occurrences, mean, and the rate of occurrences (%) increase for all the selected behaviors after the 20 days intervention was introduced. These findings suggest that engagement in CWA may be promoted even in an inclusive setup when natural agents in the environment such as peers are used