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Profiles and Longitudinal Growth Trajectories of Teacher-Rated Academic Skills and Enablers in Autistic Children and Adolescents

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Abstract

In non-autistic children, academic skills are associated with academic enablers (motivation, engagement, study/interpersonal skills), but few studies have explored these in autistic children. This study identified profiles of academic skills and enablers in autistic students and explored the trajectory of each profile over time. Teachers completed the Academic Competences Evaluation Scales for autistic children in primary and secondary educational settings annually for 5 years. Latent profile analysis identified six profiles in the primary/younger cohort and seven in the secondary/older cohort. Whilst some profiles showed relative stability across skills and enablers, others profiles were more variable. The profiles remained stable and significantly different from each other over time, with no profile × time interactions identified. Autistic children may show variability across their academic skills and enablers. This highlights the importance of understanding each individual student and their profile of strengths and challenges when planning supports.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the autistic children, their families and their teachers for giving their time to support this research study. The authors also acknowledge the contributions of the broader LASA team.

Funding

The financial support of the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC), established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program, is also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Autism Centre of Excellence, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, Brisbane, QLD, 4122, Australia

    Dawn Adams & Kate Simpson

  2. Griffith Institute of Educational Research, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    Dawn Adams, Kate Simpson, Jessica Paynter & Marleen Westerveld

  3. Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC), St Lucia, Australia

    Dawn Adams, Kate Simpson, Jessica Paynter & Marleen Westerveld

  4. School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia

    Matt Stainer & Jessica Paynter

  5. School of Health Sciences and Social Work, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia

    Marleen Westerveld

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  1. Dawn Adams
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  3. Kate Simpson
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  4. Jessica Paynter
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  5. Marleen Westerveld
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Contributions

Conceptualization: DA; Methodology: DA, KS, JP, MW; Formal analysis and investigation: MS, DA; Writing-original draft preparation, review and editing: DA, MS, KS, JP, MW; Funding acquisition: DA, JP, MW.

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Correspondence to Dawn Adams.

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Adams, D., Stainer, M., Simpson, K. et al. Profiles and Longitudinal Growth Trajectories of Teacher-Rated Academic Skills and Enablers in Autistic Children and Adolescents. J Autism Dev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06186-1

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