Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to explore children’s attitudes and behaviour toward peers with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The inclusion of children with special educational needs (SEN) is an integral part of the UK education system and is supported by current UK legislation (DfES, 2001; DfES, 2004).

It has been proposed that the most significant indicator of the success of inclusion is the extent to which children with SEN are accepted by their mainstream peers (Lewis, 1995) and that these peer relationships have a positive impact on the social and emotional development of the included child (Laws & Kelly, 2005).

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been identified as a particularly vulnerable group in terms of the success of social inclusion (Bauminger et al., 2008).

A systematic literature review into the factors affecting children's attitudes and behavioural intentions towards children with ASD highlighted limitations of the current research base and recommendations for future studies.

A research study was conducted in which the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1988) was used to explore the attitudes, behavioural intentions and actual behaviour of 318 mainstream primary school children in an urban East London Borough towards peers with ASD.

Support was found for the use of the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a valuable tool by which to explore the social inclusion of children with ASD.

The current study showed that children's attitudes, the social pressure they felt from others and the amount of control they felt they had over their own behaviour significantly predicted their behavioural intentions to befriend a peer with ASD.

Children's behavioural intentions were also found to be a significant predictor of children's actual behaviour towards an included peer with ASD.

Limitations, implications for practice and areas for future research are discussed.

A critical appraisal of the research study presents further reflections on the process and outcomes of this research.