The educational inclusion of school children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, current situation, reflections and challenges in Cuba

Educational inclusion requires the improvement of the work carried out by teachers, specialists and families in order to meet the needs of children, adolescents and young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The comprehensive education given to these students with ASD based on the inclusive policies that are being developed is a great challenge, and when considering the high expectations of an educated population like Cuba’s. The purpose of this paper is to review the pedagogical work structured on a set of principles for ASD students. For this purpose, the application and continuous use of interaction techniques that are put into practice in daily life favor learning, socialization, adaptation of their behaviors, social interrelations, and knowledge of the environment of the children with ASD. The intensity and long duration of the interventions, the cooperative intervention, precocity, the ecological principle, priority to communication and socialization, the multisensory principle, and the use of alternative facilitating systems and individualization during intervention can become guidelines for the pedagogical work the ASD learners.