This dissertation was conducted using a mixed-methods data collection approach of primarily quantitative data with some qualitative aspects. An online questionnaire was used, and the participant group comprised professionals with working experience of children with ASD.

The dissertation corroborates the hypothesis that social interaction and communication difficulties are primary challenges for children and young people with ASD. Main themes include the fact that children with ASD struggle to identify and express emotion and that challenging behaviour is often the response to communication and social interaction difficulties. The most useful input was found to be a proper understanding of the individual child and of the triggers or conditions which the child finds most challenging. A proper understanding was found to lead to the most effective intervention or input for the child.

Including parents and carers in the participant group and using focus groups to allow for more qualitative research would have added depth to the research and would have incorporated data based on children with ASD being assessed in their home environment. This is likely to alter the findings as children being assessed in the classroom, for example, may respond differently to children being assessed in their home environment.