Constructing Stratified Teaching Strategies for School-Aged Autistic Children from the Perspective of Adaptive Behavior Development

The global special education system is currently facing the "precision paradox" in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) interventions. Although evidence-based research emphasizes the clinical necessity of individualized education programs (IEPs), the global imbalance in resource allocation severely hinders their implementation. As a result, achieving a dynamic balance between optimizing intervention resources and addressing individual developmental needs, based on the behavioral heterogeneity of children with ASD, has become an urgent challenge. This cross-sectional study (N = 60, ages 6.07–8.66) is grounded in Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development theory and the holistic development perspective. It employs a localized adaptive behavior development assessment system suitable for China and applies cluster analysis to reveal the heterogeneity of adaptive behavior in school-age children with autism. The children were classified into three distinct educational guidance types: basic support type, mixed development type, and high potential type. This research revealed significant differences across the five core domains—perception, motor skills, cognition, language communication, and social adaptation—among the different types. Among them, the basic support type needs to strengthen the structured environment and basic skills training; the mixed development type should promote the coordinated development of abilities through the dynamic assessment-intervention cycle; and the high-potential type can activate the coordinated development of perception-cognition-motor skills by means of inclusive education.