The role of families in supporting social inclusion 151friends in his class using the KeyNote™ app. From his perspective, Jane was
a friend he liked to play with. When this was presented at Peter’s IEP meet-
ing, a discussion followed about what a friendship looks like and what friends
do to be recognised as friends. Mr. Grant and Peter’s occupational therapist
prepared a visual social story to accompany this conversation. Mr. Grant also
mentioned that Jane sometimes found it difficult to play with Peter, as he
does not take turns in games, and he often does not want to change to a dif-
ferent game when Jane gets bored with the one they are playing. Everybody
agreed to focus on turn taking as the next step in strengthening Peter’s friend-
ship with Jane. Mr. Grant suggested using the Power Card Strategy (Daubert,
Hornstein and Tincani, 2015), a visual aid–based intervention, which would
be very suitable, given it would allow the use of Ninja Turtles, a great interest
of Peter’s. A Ninja Turtles motif was printed on Peter’s cards, and the targeted
behavior was taking turns. Peter also practiced turn-taking at home, with his
mother, grandparents and younger sister.
Following an intervention, Peter learned to communicate his needs in a
more appropriate way, and the occurrence of his aggressive and self-injurious
behaviours decreased. He enjoyed using the Ninja Turtle cards, and gradu-
ally learned to take turns during a game on most occasions. This resulted in
numerous occasions when not only Jane, but also other classmates played
with him. Peter’s mother also noted improvement in the relationship between
Peter and his sister.Future directions
Families of children and young people with ASD play a pivotal role in supporting
their child’s social inclusion. Their involvement in the development of the social
skills of their child, as well as in fostering his/her self-determination, is critical for
their child’s future outcomes. While this has been acknowledged by a number of
researchers, it would be unfair to expect families to bear the main responsibility for
their child’s inclusion. As highlighted by Bossaert (2013), there are four main aspects
of social inclusion, with two of them placing expectations of active involvement on
the child with a disability (reciprocal relationships and interactions), while the other
two place expectations on the child’s environment (perception of the student with
ASD and acceptance by classmates). In other words, social inclusion can be achieved
by the active involvement of all relevant stakeholders, i.e., of a child with ASD, his/
her family, teachers, classmates and their families. Home–school collaboration is a
cornerstone of these efforts.
The importance of one’s self-determination skills for successful social inclusion
cannot be underestimated. While there are documented efforts of the fostering
of these skills in the school environment, families need a raised awareness of the
importance of the development of self-determination skills across all environments