Creative art-based pedagogies with autistic students: A systematic review on stakeholders' perspectives on its delivery and implementation in secondary mainstream schools

Abstract

More than 70 % of autistic young people are educated in mainstream schools and some, similarly to their non-autistic peers, experience challenges in mainstream settings. Research suggests that the creative arts offer unique prospects in the education of autistic students. However, such research primarily explores the creative arts in a therapeutic or interventional context; little research has considered creative arts’ use as a pedagogical tool in mainstream secondary school classrooms with autistic students. The current narrative systematic review aims to synthesise empirical evidence concerning: (a) how creative arts-based pedagogy (CABP) is theorised, (b) creative arts-based pedagogies implementation and delivery with autistic secondary school students and (c) research gaps in the field. Identified through thematic analysis, findings indicate that creative arts-based pedagogy was perceived with greater positivity than negativity, yet a greater number of disabling factors were identified than enabling factors. The only paper to explicitly discuss a gap in research within the extracted data was Kehl (2021). However, in the concluding sections not under analysis in line with this study's data extraction approach, further gaps in research were identified. Further research is required to establish enabling factors that can help increase the effectiveness of CABP delivery and implementation in secondary educational settings with autistic students.