Background Primary school classrooms are busy multi-sensory environments where children engage in important formal learning. Evidence suggests that sensory features of classrooms can negatively impact engagement and learning. This may be particularly important for neurodivergent children with sensory differences, especially autistic children. Some sensory features of the classroom are under teachers’ control, that is, displays. Aims To systematically investigate the impact of sensory classroom features (classroom displays and classroom noise) on engagement by testing the impact on task engagement for autistic and neurotypical children. Sample There were 25 autistic (8–11 years) and 22 neurotypical children (6–11 years). Methods An experiment in which two groups of children (autistic and neurotypical) completed classroom tasks (self-directed reading comprehension) under four experimental sensory conditions (baseline, visual displays present, audio classroom noise, and visual and audio) in a ‘mini-classroom’. Task behaviour was video-recorded and coded for analysis. Results Experimental evidence showed that displays can have a detrimental impact on engagement, leading to more off-task behaviour, especially for autistic children. Evidence of the negative impact from classroom noise was not found here, but is discussed in relation to the experimental context. Conclusions This evidence has significant implications for optimising learning for all children, but especially for autistic and neurodivergent children with sensory differences.
Jones et al. (Wed,) studied this question.