Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Applied Behaviour Analysis for autistic children.

The department has not undertaken an assessment of the effectiveness of Applied Behaviour Analysis for autistic children and young people.

The 2023 Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan sets out our vision to improve mainstream education through setting standards for early and accurate identification of need and timely access to support to meet those needs. The standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and practice guides will be developed to support frontline professionals. The first three practice guides will be published by the end of 2025 and will include a practice guide on autism.

To inform this, we are continuing to work with a wide range of stakeholders to understand what the most effective ways are to support autistic children and young people in education settings.