Purpose: Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience challenges with facial emotion recognition (FER), which may exacerbate social difficulties in ASD. Few studies have examined whether FER can be experimentally manipulated and improved for autistic people. This study utilized a randomized controlled trial design to examine…

When randomized control trials are not possible, quasi-experimental methods often represent the gold standard. One quasi-experimental method is difference-in-difference (DiD), which compares changes in outcomes before and after treatment across groups to estimate a causal effect. DiD researchers often use fairly exhaustive robustness checks to…

Longitudinal randomized controlled trials generally assign individuals randomly to interventions at baseline and then evaluate how differential average treatment effects evolve over time. This study shows that longitudinal settings could benefit from "Recurrent Individual Treatment Assignment" ("RITA") instead, particularly in…

Background: There is a growing body of evidence showing the benefits to coaches and players in adopting a game-based pedagogical approach. Whilst the evidence in support of a game-based pedagogy continues to rise it is acknowledged that the complex art form of coaching is a uniquely personal one, where the coach may draw on previous first-hand…

Robotic therapies are receiving growing interest in the autism field, especially for the improvement of social skills of children, enhancing traditional human interventions. In this work, we conduct a scoping review of the literature in robotics for autism, providing the largest review on this field from the last five years. Our work underlines…

Analyzing heterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs) plays a crucial role in understanding the impacts of educational interventions. A standard practice for HTE analysis is to examine interactions between treatment status and preintervention participant characteristics, such as pretest scores, to identify how different groups respond to treatment.…

Technology-assisted parent-mediated interventions improve accessibility and are acceptable but not proven to be effective. We conducted a systematic search of 6 databases. We included and analysed results from studies on social and communication outcomes. Sixteen Randomised-Controlled-Trials (RCTs) with 748 participants were included. Most studies…

Analyzing heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) plays a crucial role in understanding the impacts of educational interventions. A standard practice for HTE analysis is to examine interactions between treatment status and pre-intervention participant characteristics, such as pretest scores, to identify how different groups respond to treatment.…

Background: An efficacy study based on a randomized controlled trial (RCT) was designed to evaluate the impact of ASSISTments on math learning among middle school students, including those from high-needs rural schools. Despite extensive recruitment efforts in 2021 (during the pandemic), only a few schools and their teachers agreed to participate,…

This is a technical report detailing the analytic methods used to assess the effects of a virtual professional learning community (vPLC)-enhanced ASSISTments intervention. The report uses a quasi-experimental design and partially nested regression model to account for clustering and reveals that while overall effects were positive but not…

Background: Among children diagnosed with developmental delays, difficulties in self-regulation are prominent and have been linked to school readiness problems. Objective: The current study sought to examine the impact of the Kids In Transition to School (KITS) school readiness intervention program on self-regulation, with a specific focus on…

Purpose: This review article introduces research methods for personalization of intervention. Our goals are to review evidence-based practices for improving social communication impairment in children with autism spectrum disorder generally and then how these practices can be systematized in ways that personalize intervention, especially for…

Pretense is a naturally occurring, apparently universal activity for typically developing children. Yet its function and effects remain unclear. One theorized possibility is that pretense activities, such as dramatic pretend play games, are a possible causal path to improve children's emotional development. Social and emotional skills,…

The psychometric properties of the Kids Intervention Profile (KIP), a rating scale designed to measure academic intervention acceptability from the perspective of students, were examined as well as the influence of background factors on students' acceptability ratings. Data were extracted from 4 randomized controlled trials investigating the…

This Learner Response System (LRS) intervention involves the use of electronic handheld devices that allow teachers and pupils to provide immediate feedback during lessons. For example, pupils can respond to a question using the device and responses are immediately visible to the teacher, or they can work through problems on the device at their…