Abstract:

Autism is one of the most studied neurodevelopmental disorders in the last decade. One of the core deficits of the disorder concerns the difficulty of these children in the area of social communication (DSM 5). In our study we wanted to investigate the effectiveness of using Cooperative Learning in summer camps that included both children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and children with normotypical development. In particular we want to investigate the enhancement of social skills and/or group skills in children with ASD Level 1. In addition we investigate the change of soft skills and sensitivity towards disabilities and inclusive behaviors in children with typical development. We divided both subjects with ASD and children with neurotypical development into two groups and performed a first assessment of social skills and group skills. One of each subgroup was involved in cooperative learning activities, the other one followed the regular summer camp activities. The children exposed to training with cooperative learning obtained higher scores on the socialization and peer communication scales than the children who carried out the normal activities of the summer camp, in the same way the typical developmental children showed a greater behavioral openness towards their peers with ASD.

Keywords:

Cooperative learning, peer mediated, peer tutoring, learning, ASD, Autism.