School-university partnerships to support students with ASD: Using Board Games to combine social skill training programme

Introduction: Play-based learning provides a natural communication environment which can promote social interaction for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to utilize the skills in real context. A combined Board Games and direct teaching social skill training programme was conducted to explore whether a natural play environment could enhance students with ASD in utilizing the social and communicative skills that they learned in the training programme.

Methods: An 8-session training programme aimed at enhancing the social and communicative skill of students with ASD was conducted in an ordinary primary school in Hong Kong. 10 students with ASD / with social and emotional problem (aged 6-8) were recruited in a Hong Kong ordinary school to join this weekly after-school training programme. Each session lasted about 1.5 hours and was divided into two parts: 30-minutes direct social skills teaching conducted by a teacher, followed by 60-minutes Board Games play time facilitated by 20 undergraduate students who were attending a social service learning course in a Hong Kong University.The students were separated into 5 groups. Each group included 4 undergraduate facilitators and 2 students with ASD. The facilitators were required to assist in designing the training materials and broad games in the 60mins play sessions, play with the students with ASD, observe their behavior and to evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional methods.Observation forms were filled by the teacher and facilitators in each session. After 8-sessions training, feedbacks from school teachers and parents were collected, focus group interview and individual self-reflection on the field experience were also done by the facilitators in order to evaluate their understanding of students with ASD and perspectives in social inclusion.

Results: Most students with ASD were found engaging in playing board games and can apply the social and communicative skills that they learned in the training programmes. Increase in understanding of students with ASD was also reported by the facilitators.

Discussion: Further studies in play-based learning can be done in order to enhance children with ASD to utilize social skills in a real context. The model of School-university partnerships can be promoted widely to increase undergraduates’ sense of social inclusion through serving children with ASD. Copyright © 2019 12th Autism-Europe International Congress.