Many autistic children receive special education services via Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) that include specific educational goals and needs. Prior research has examined programming options available to support autistic students, but less is known about their educational needs across academic and developmental educational goals. Additionally, existing approaches have often relied on small studies focused on describing individual goal areas. This study uses data from 551 families from across the United States with an autistic child in grades K-12 and latent class analysis to (a) identify latent, or underlying, subgroups based off multivariate response patterns across educational goals endorsed in six domains (reading, writing, math, language and communication, social skills, behavior), and (b) examine if demographic and developmental covariates predict latent class membership. We identified five latent classes: All Goals (40.49%); Autistic Characteristics (21.63%); Language, Literacy, and Autistic Characteristics (18.99%); Academic (13.94%); and Language and Communication (4.95%). Two covariates—percentage of time spent in general education and adaptive behavior—predicted differences in latent class membership. Findings offer a comprehensive examination into the heterogeneous educational needs of autistic school-age children. Our results emphasize the need for researchers and educators to understand the educational needs of autistic students beyond the presence of an IEP.

中文翻译：

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描述自闭症学生的特殊教育目标：具有人口统计和发展协变量的潜在班级分析


许多自闭症儿童通过个性化教育计划 （IEP） 接受特殊教育服务，其中包括特定的教育目标和需求。先前的研究已经检查了可用于支持自闭症学生的计划选项，但对他们在学术和发展教育目标方面的教育需求知之甚少。此外，现有方法通常依赖于专注于描述单个目标领域的小型研究。本研究使用来自美国各地 551 个家庭的数据，这些家庭中有 K-12 年级的自闭症儿童，并进行了潜在阶级分析，以 （a） 根据六个领域（阅读、写作、数学、语言和交流、社交技能、行为）认可的教育目标的多变量反应模式确定潜在或潜在的亚组，以及 （b） 检查人口统计学和发展协变量是否预测潜在的阶级成员身份。我们确定了五个潜在类别：所有目标 （40.49%）;自闭症特征 （21.63%）;语言、识字和自闭症特征 （18.99%）;学术 （13.94%）;以及语言和沟通 （4.95%）。两个协变量——花在普通教育和适应性行为上的时间百分比——预测了潜在班级成员的差异。研究结果对自闭症学龄儿童的异质性教育需求进行了全面检查。我们的结果强调研究人员和教育工作者需要了解自 闭症学生在 IEP 存在之外的教育需求。