Podcast Episode Notes

I have a brilliant guest and former colleague of mine, Haia Ironside! She has over 10 years’ experience working in education. Haia is a qualified teacher and has taught in both mainstream and special schools in the UK as well as in an integration specialist based in Germany. Haia has a Masters in Autism Studies from the University of Kent. Haia has a particular interest in early intervention and spent three years teaching in the early years at a special school for children with a diagnosis of autism in London. 

This makes her a great guest to speak on the subject of early intervention!

In this episode, Haia and I discuss:

• There are many different autism interventions and approaches. It can often be overwhelming and confusing for parents and carers. Each child needs their individual needs and context to be considered before trialling and finding effective interventions.


• A combined approach


• The importance of a multidisciplinary team 


• Intervention which is not directly targeted at the child but in the form of supporting parents, families and educational settings.


• Ensuring effective monitoring and evaluation process is in place to review impact


• Highlighting the question “what are we intervening for and why?”


• The importance of effective home and school partnership where all information is being shared


• The SCERTS approach –


• Being informed about specific interventions


• Most importantly, acting in the child’s best interests


• Family support


• Family engagement


• Knowing what support is available and support groups. 

Links mentioned in the podcast:

Research Autism list of interventions

NICE Autism Guidelines

The Guardian Video: Meet Saffron: inside the colourful mind of a girl with autism 

My Facebook support group ‘Autism and inclusive teaching ideas’, come and join!

Haia Ironside:

“As we are increasingly able to diagnose children as autistic at a very young age, we are able to explore and identify interventions to support their development. I define early intervention as simply trying to do something as early as possible to support a child’s development. There are now numerous different programs. If your child is diagnosed as autistic, you are likely to go down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of different options.

Ultimately, I believe that the outcome of any intervention depends on the context of the child and the therapy. 

Let’s take two examples, child A and child B and describe two different successful outcomes. Child A was diagnosed as autistic at 4 years old with relatively mild symptoms so parents decided to send them to a mainstream school.  Child A receives regular speech and language therapy input, sessions which are designed around their interests and are therefore extremely motivating! Their guardian also integrates some of the strategies into the home environment. Over a period of time, there is a decrease in Child A’s linguistic and communication deficit. In this instance, both the context around the child and the particular therapy worked towards a positive outcome. Child B is nonverbal and attends a special school. Child B was diagnosed at 5 years old. Child B has been engaging in daily Intensive Interaction sessions and staff and parents are increasingly aware of various different attempts at communication, therefore able to understand and respond to reinforce the behaviour. Child B is increasingly initiating communication! Again, both the context around Child B and the particular intervention are working towards a positive outcome. 

These two examples have several things in common. Firstly, both children have a diagnosis which gives them and their families access to further support. Secondly both children are participating happily in different forms of intervention to support their development. Thirdly, the interventions are being effectively conducted by trained professionals. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the strategies are being integrated into the home environment! 

Some important issues to consider with regards to early intervention: 

1. Firstly, whilst many interventions are supposedly evidence based, I would caution that the evidence tends to have been collected by the people who designed the program and the robustness of the research is often quite questionable. I have asked Steph to include a link to the Research Autism website which lists over 100 interventions alongside details of the research evidence. 
2. Secondly, there is an important ethical question around consent to participate in a particular program. I hope we all agree that any intervention