Implications for future research

This research provided rich data on TA’s experiences of forming relationships with children who have ASD. However, given the limitations noted previously there are five areas I feel are important for future research studies. These are:

• Investigating the experiences of TAs in forming relationships with children and young people with ASD in secondary and special schools.

• Investigating the link between secure and committed relationships with TAs and children with ASD and experience and training of TAs

• Investigating the link between secure and committed relationships and outcomes for pupils with ASD

• Investigating the links between severity of ASD and forming secure and committed relationships with children who have ASD

• Investigating the impact of attachment behaviour in TAs and the children they support with ASD.

Investigating the experiences of TAs in forming relationships with children and young people with ASD in secondary and special schools

This current research highlights the issues relating to forming social relationships with children who have ASD in mainstream primary schools but it would be worthwhile to note whether similar themes and issues relating to the development of close relationships exist for TAs in supporting pupils with ASD in secondary schools or special schools. Secondary schools have unique factors that might influence the development of

relationships such as greater numbers of subjects and teachers that the young person has to interact with and this paces demands upon both he pupils and the TAs in their work. In special schools TAs work in a slightly different way and the pupils are often with a peer group of similar needs. It would be interesting to see if the issues around investment of time and commitment are similar in these settings and so studies that aimed to look at the experiences of TAs supporting pupils with ASD in secondary and special schools would be useful in this regard.

Investigating the link between secure and committed relationships with TAs and children with ASD and experience and training of TAs

It is possible that if TAs have greater training and experience, particularly in ASD, then this would have an impact upon their ability to form positive, secure and committed relationships. Research that investigated the impact of training and experience on the forming of relationships would be useful, as it would identify training implications for TAs, schools and Educational Psychologists. This could be investigated in two ways. Firstly, having a sample of TAs covering a range of experience and training in ASD and talking to them about their experiences of forming relationships with children who have ASD would help to see if those with greater training and experience had more secure and committed relationships. Secondly, it would be possible to provide TAs with specific training to see if this impacted upon their relationships with children who have ASD.

Investigating the link between secure and committed relationships and outcomes for pupils with ASD

Whilst this current research highlighted the possibility that TAs with a more positive, secure and committed relationship are likely to be more effective there is no specific link to particular outcomes in this study. Therefore, it would be useful for future research to look at whether TAs with secure and committed relationships have an impact on outcomes for children with ASD. In particular, the impact on developing social

interaction and communication skills and social inclusion would be worthwhile, as this follows on from suggestions made by Saddler (2014) in her review of TA effectiveness.

Investigating the links between severity of ASD and forming secure and committed relationships with children who have ASD

One of the limiting factors in this current research was a lack of information on the severity of the children’s ASD and how it might impact on forming relationships with TAs. It is logical to link greater severity of ASD with greater difficulties in forming relationships as there are likely to be more significant social communication and interaction difficulties presenting in a child with more severe ASD, which will make forming a positive, secure and committed relationship potentially more challenging. Therefore, a study that looked at TAs supporting pupils with a range of severity of ASD would be useful and worthwhile and would have possible implications for support and training for TAs and schools.

Investigating the impact of attachment behaviour in TAs and the children they support with ASD

This research raises the issue of what is happening in developing close relationships between TAs and children with ASD. An area that would be worth studying would be how attachment forms between TAs and children with ASD and this could be linked to attachment behaviour both in the TAs and in the children themselves. There are measures of attachment behaviour that can be administered and it would be useful to see if secure attachment behaviour results in secure and committed relationships with children who have ASD.

Given that there is a paucity of research on how TAs and, indeed, other adults develop relationships with children who have ASD there is a need for research to explore this in greater depth to provide professionals working with children who have ASD the widest

knowledge base of information in order to help develop effective support, training and strategies for TAs in schools.