As a teacher of young children who was interested in learning how to work effectively with children with autism, my original aim when I planned the projects that would be included in the present thesis was to explore different areas of the education of these children within ABA-based school environments. I had the opportunity both to work and to conduct research in such a setting, described in this first chapter of the thesis. About halfway through my research however, after the completion of two empirical studies, the occurrence of certain changes of circumstances within the school setting meant that it would not be possible to continue conducting research there as previously planned. Consequently, I had to make adjustments to the original focus of my PhD research and plan studies that would be conducted in different school settings that serve children with intellectual disability as well as autism. As one of the first two studies (conducted in the ABA school setting) involved the adaptation and initial evaluation of a numeracy curriculum for children with autism, I decided to focus on the academic area of mathematics for the remaining projects of my PhD research.
Chapter 1 of the present thesis starts with a brief overview of autism spectrum disorders. The issue of the various interventions implemented with children with autism is discussed next, and the behavioural model of early intervention is described. The area of school-based education of children with autism is discussed in the next section, followed by a description of the ABA school setting where the first two empirical studies included in the present thesis were conducted. In the final part of Chapter 1 an overview of the structure of the present thesis, and a brief description of the studies presented in the following chapters are presented.