SYSTEMATIC REVIEW published: 29 April 2021 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674033 Impact of Interactive Learning Environments on Learning and Cognitive Development of Children With Special Educational Needs: A Literature Review Leire Ugalde 1 , Maite Santiago-Garabieta 2*, Beatriz Villarejo-Carballido 3 and Lídia Puigvert 4,5 1 Departament of Educational Organization and Didactics, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian-Donostia, Spain, 2 Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain, 3 Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 4 Department of Sociology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 5 Affiliated Member of the Centre for Community, Gender and Social Justice, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom Children with special educational needs (SEN) achieve lower educational levels than their peers without special needs, leading to a higher risk of social exclusion in the future. Inclusive education aims to promote learning and to benefit the cognitive development Edited by: Roseli Rodrigues De Mello, of these students, and numerous research studies have indicated that interactive Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil environments benefit inclusion. However, it is necessary to know how these inclusive Reviewed by: environments can positively impact the academic improvement and development of Teresa Morlà Folch, these students’ cognitive skills. This article provides a review of the scientific literature University of Rovira i Virgili, Spain Roger Campdepadrós, from Web of Science, SCOPUS, ERIC, and PsychINFO to understand the impact of University of Girona, Spain interactive environments on the academic learning and cognitive skill development of *Correspondence: children with SEN. A total of 17 studies were selected. Those studies showed the Maite Santiago-Garabieta maitesantiago@deusto.es effectiveness of interactive learning environments in promoting instrumental learning, increasing academic involvement, and improving the cognitive development of children Specialty section: with disabilities. Based on these results, it can be concluded that interaction-based This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, interventions with an inclusive approach nurture the learning and cognitive development a section of the journal of students with SEN. Frontiers in Psychology Keywords: interaction, learning, development, learning environments, special educational needs Received: 28 February 2021 Accepted: 06 April 2021 Published: 29 April 2021 INTRODUCTION Citation: Ugalde L, Santiago-Garabieta M, People with disabilities are among the most vulnerable groups in society. According to the Villarejo-Carballido B and Puigvert L World Health Organization (2011), students with special educational needs (SEN) achieve lower (2021) Impact of Interactive Learning educational levels than non-disabled students, with lower retention rates and promotion within the Environments on Learning and Cognitive Development of Children educational systems. These low educational levels influence subsequent opportunities, as students With Special Educational Needs: A with SEN are more likely to suffer high unemployment rates, poverty, and wage discrimination Literature Review. (O’Keefe, 2007; Fuchs, 2014). This scenario worsens in adverse situations such as the current Front. Psychol. 12:674033. COVID-19 pandemic, in which, as reported by the Report of Progress Toward the Sustainable doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674033 Development Goals (United Nations, 2020), people with disabilities are affected disproportionately. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 April 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 674033 Ugalde et al. Interactions for SEN Children Learning This reality must be understood in the context of the achievements regarding learning promotion in mainstream individual conditions of students with disabilities or other contexts, which contribute to reducing inequalities and special needs and the educational provisions they receive. For enhancing inclusion. The importance of dialogue and interaction this reason, the United Nations 2030 agenda aims to ensure in the development and learning of children with and without inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning SEN were already stressed by Vygotsky (1978). Similarly, opportunities for all. The concept of inclusive education has social and dialogical interactions are identified as an important changed from being understood throughout history as a concept contributing factor for language acquisition (Purcell-Gates et al., that emphasizes the importance of educating students with SEN 2011), scientific reasoning (Howe, 2009), and mathematical in conventional classes to transforming schools to facilitate understanding (Stein et al., 2015). For this reason, to promote the acquisition of relevant learning by diverse students and to an improvement in learning, it is important to consider the promote belonging to the group (Ainscow, 2005; Meijer, 2010; creation of dialogical learning environments in which classroom Porter, 2011; Hansen et al., 2020). Thus, inclusion is an initiative interactions and dialogues include all students (Berry and that leads to the improvement of educational systems and the Englert, 2005; Ni Bhroin, 2013). Research such as that carried promotion of more equitable societies (Arnesen et al., 2007; out by Berry and Englert (2005) and Rajala et al. (2012) Graham and Slee, 2008; Vlachou et al., 2016). shows the improvements produced in students’ development However, inclusive education is one of the most important and learning as a result of the increase in opportunities for challenges facing schools today, especially for SEN students. The students with and without SEN to participate more actively in latest data available for Europe (European Agency for Special classroom dynamics. Within the efforts to advance toward more Needs Inclusive Education, 2020) show that the percentage of inclusive education where learning interactions and dialogues students in primary and lower secondary education with an are promoted among diverse students, schools as learning official SEN decision who follow education in mainstream classes communities implement successful educational actions (SEAs) alongside their mainstream peers at least 80% of the school time (Flecha, 2015) with students grouped according to heterogeneity is 64.97% (data from 29 countries). Although the percentage criteria, avoiding any type of segregation and enhancing the of students with SEN enrolled in mainstream schools is quite richness of interactions (Díez-Palomar et al., 2020). Several high and the European Agency reports a slight increase in studies have reiterated the effectiveness of SEAs in the creation students with SEN placed in mainstream schools, the same of inclusive learning contexts, which benefit students with SEN agency warns that this does not mean that these students are (García-Carrión et al., 2018). In these investigations, quality integrated into the mainstream classroom with the rest of the interactions among diverse students have been found to be a students. The European Agency also refers to the trend in all relevant factor for achieving positive impacts. the countries studied of still placing the students with the most Based on this existing knowledge, there is a need to further severe SEN in special education schools (European Agency for explore the potential of interactive learning environments to Special Needs Inclusive Education, 2018). The use of special create enhanced opportunities for students with SEN concerning education or support classrooms has traditionally been linked their academic learning and cognitive skills development. With to the concept that the particular needs of students with SEN the aim of delving deeper into the aspects that can help optimize are best met in specially designed environments adapted to their the learning processes of pupils with SEN, this study aims to abilities (Etscheidt, 2006). However, studies in education have identify and systematize the existing contributions published shown that the segregation of groups of students, including in recent scientific literature on the impact of educational students with SEN, decreases their opportunities for learning interventions based on dialogue and/or interaction on the and interaction with society (Fitch, 2002; Bossaert et al., 2015). academic improvement and development of children with SEN. Separated education also causes negative consequences such as low expectations regarding one’s own abilities and decreased self- confidence, academic performance, and self-esteem (Fisher et al., MATERIALS AND METHODS 2002; Fitch, 2002; Stepaniuk, 2019). Conversely, several investigations have shown that the To conduct the systematic review presented in this study, integration of students with SEN in conventional classes and the PRISMA (Moher et al., 2009) recommendations were schools is associated with positive effects on social and cognitive taken into account. In this way, the systematic research of the development (Peetsma and Van der Veen, 2015). Regarding literature was conducted based on the main databases in the academic learning, Dessemontet et al. (2012) conducted a fields of Psychology and Education: Web of Science (WoS), comparative study of children with intellectual disabilities who SCOPUS, ERIC, and PsychINFO. Search terms were selected attended a general education classroom or special schools and based on four categories: effects, target, intervention, and found better literacy skills in the first group. The same type of population/context. Taking into account the research goal and comparison was made by Laws et al. (2000) with children who the most common terms used in education in these fields, had Down Syndrome, and in this case, those who participated in the following keywords per category were selected: (a) effects: the mainstream setting achieved better learning results, including “inclusion,” “cognitive development,” and “skills”; (b) target: higher scores for vocabulary, grammar, and digit span measures. “disabilities,” “special needs,” “special educational needs,” and The opportunities for interaction and dialogue with typically “teachers”; (c) intervention: “interaction,” “interactive learning developing peers may play a role in obtaining positive environment,” “interactive learning,” “dialogue,” “dialogic Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 2 April 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 674033 Ugalde et al. Interactions for SEN Children Learning interaction,” and “dialogic teaching and learning”; and (d) population/context : “children,” “student,” “classroom,” “school,” and “pupil.” The literature published between 2005 and 2020 was searched, ensuring a broad and updated review of the published evidence on the subject. The final search equation was defined using the Boolean connector “AND,” and combinations of the keywords were made by securing a keyword for each of the four search categories. The search was filtered by scientific documents and by the area of knowledge of social science in WoS. A total of 544 searches were carried out, and 3,697 articles were identified. Inclusion Criteria and Exclusion Criteria The selection of the articles was carried out using the following inclusion criteria: (i) educational intervention for students with SEN in school settings, (ii) educational intervention based on interaction/dialogue with students with SEN in school settings, and (iii) evidence of improvement in learning and development (reading, attention, language, oral expression, reasoning, curricular content) and cognitive development. The criteria for exclusion were as follows: (i) 18 years of age and older, (ii) duplicate citations, (iii) out-of-school interventions, and (iv) interventions not related to disabilities/special educational needs. Articles that met all the inclusion criteria in their abstracts were preselected for further in-depth reading of the entire article. Articles that met at least one of the exclusion criteria were not FIGURE 1 | Flow diagram to show the process of study selection. selected. A total of 310 papers were preselected based on the abstract, of which 112 articles were selected for downloading and in-depth reading (Figure 1). Impact on Literacy Learning, Language Development, and Communication Skills RESULTS The impact of interactive environments on improving language, literacy and communication skills in children with SEN is the The final selection included 17 scientific articles that provided most prominent in the studies reviewed. Of the 17 articles evidence regarding the academic and developmental impact of selected, a total of nine articles have shown evidence in this interactive learning environments on students with SEN. Table 1 regard. In terms of language learning, studies such as that shows a summary of the information on each of the articles conducted by Chen et al. (2020) in preschool classrooms organized by the impact generated on the child and indicating highlight the significant impact of language resources provided the country where the study was conducted, the sample of by peers, especially for students with disabilities. When these participating students, the design of the research, the educational language resources are shared, there is a considerable language program studied, and the main findings of the study. growth effect on students in this sample. The work developed The studies reviewed show that interactive learning by Ferguson et al. (2020), which focused on preschool students environments improve cognitive skills and the development diagnosed with autism, points in the same direction. According of instrumental learning in pupils with SEN. Overall, the to the results of their study, these students received greater verbal development of language and literacy competencies and input, produced greater verbal output and had access to similar mathematical and science knowledge is highlighted. These levels of teacher talk when they were integrated in inclusive studies show that interactions with other students, as well as classrooms compared with those who were in classes with only among students and teachers, in the educational context have a autist peers or in classes with peers with diverse disabilities. key role in achieving such improvements. In this regard, drawing Indeed, being in inclusive classrooms broadens the opportunities on the analysis of the 17 studies, the main results concerning for students with SEN to get exposure to natural language in a the impact generated by interactive learning environments social context. on students with SEN have been organized into three main One of the key elements in improving children’s literacy topics: (1) impact on literacy learning, language development learning with disabilities is that the interactions promoted are and communication skills, (2) impact on science learning of high quality, mediated by appropriate training and guidance and mathematical thinking, and (3) impact on enhancing on specific strategies for a specific purpose. Tobin (2007), who academic engagement. studied positive interactions within inclusion experiences, noted Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 3 April 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 674033 Ugalde et al. Interactions for SEN Children Learning TABLE 1 | Summary of articles from the literature review. References Country Sample (Age) Research Educational program Key findings design Impact on literacy learning, language development and communication skills Chen et al. (2020) USA 448 children, 178 had Quantitative Peers’ Language Resources Peer language resources were identified disabilities influential in promoting students’ language skills. Ferguson et al. (2020) USA 53 children with ASD (3–5 Quantitative Characteristic of Early Inclusive early intervention years) Intervention Program placements encourage to talk more and receive more verbal information from their peers. García-Carrión et al. Spain 9 units of early childhood and Qualitative Interactive Groups and Increase in written expression, (2016) primary education Dialogic Literary Gatherings self-confidence in the reading and writing process, progress in reading. Nahmias et al. (2014) USA 98 preschools children with Quantitative Early Intervention Program Increased cognitive development of ASD children with SEN. Parker and Kamps USA 2 students with AD Quantitative Summer School Program Increase in vocabulary, interest in (2011) literacy activities, skills, and confidence. Raver et al. (2014) USA 4 children with hearing loss Quantitative Oral Preschool and Inclusive Increase in verbal comments and play Preschools turns in interventions. Improvement in behaviors with both interventions. Stanton-Chapman USA 120 preschool children at high Quantitative Head Start Increased vocabulary and increased et al. (2008) risk for language and social frequency of verbal behavior. problems Tobin (2007) USA 4 students with mild Qualitative Positive Interactions and Enhanced literacy learning and made intellectual disabilities and 1 “Good New Visits” text more accessible. student with a learning disability Whalon and Hart (2011) – Children with ASD will - Qualitative Reading Comprehension Encourages the occurrence of new, school and post-school spontaneous initiations, and opportunities. responses during reading. Impact on science learning and mathematical thinking Lei et al. (2020) USA 1 Learner and 1 native english Quantitative and PGBM-COMPS Math Increases the dually classified with disabilities qualitative students’ capacity to think and answer multiplicative problems. Lambert et al. (2020) USA A fifth-grade student with Qualitative Mathematic Increases verbal and non-verbal autism disorder participation and mathematical thinking in multiple contexts. McLure (2020) Australia 3 students with SEN Quantitative and Thinking Frames Approach Growth in self-efficacy perception, qualitative performance in the evaluation’s tasks, engagement and science conceptual understanding. Wu et al. (2020) Taiwan 3 students with disabilities Quantitative Peer Mediated Instruction with Improved participants’ science (8–9 years) Augmentative and Alternative knowledge. Communication and Speech Generating Devices Impact on enhancing academic engagement Andzik et al. (2016) USA 23 students Quantitative Augmentative and Alternative Increasing the expectations for (6–11 years) Communication systems communication participation and purposefully creating high-quality and diverse interaction opportunities. Bock (2007) USA 1 student with AS in a Middle Quantitative Social–behavioral Learning Increasing the percentage of time School Strategy Intervention spent learning and the participant presented long-term memory. Carter et al. (2015) USA 21 High Schools Qualitative A practical and promising Promoting academic learning approach for supporting students Carter et al. (2017) USA 4 students with ASD of four Quantitative General Education Classrooms Improved attitudes, personal growth High School and a stronger commitment to inclusion. Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 4 April 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 674033 Ugalde et al. Interactions for SEN Children Learning that high-quality discussions improved literacy learning and to either interact with typically developing peers or receive an made the text more accessible to children with intellectual and autism-specific intervention. learning disabilities. In this regard, research shows that the Additionally, focusing on students with autism, Whalon and interactions established between students with SEN and the rest Hart (2011) analyzed the possibilities for adapting an evidence- of the educational community are essential to enhance their based program to develop their reading skills. The selected learning. The study by García-Carrión et al. (2016) analyzed intervention consisted of question-and-answer relationships the impact of interactions between the students themselves (QARs), a generative questioning strategy used to promote and with teachers and adult volunteers (family members, reading comprehension in typically developing students. The community members, and university students) in the Dialogic study identified a way to adapt this strategy to include Literary Gatherings (DLG) and the Interactive Groups (IG). instructional supports that (a) provide a way for students with These are based on an inclusive educational approach where ASD to attend to important elements of the text immediately; the needs of diverse learners are addressed in a common (b) successfully engage in reciprocal interactions about the text; framework and learning content and activities are shared and (c) encourage new initiations and spontaneous responses with the rest of the group. The results revealed that these during reading. By creating opportunities for students with ASD educational actions contributed to supporting learning, helped to interact with their peers through an activity based on direct students with SEN understand concrete activities, created new and explicit reading comprehension, students with ASD are learning opportunities, and helped develop new academic skills. encouraged to learn a strategy that not only helps them access Pupils with severe difficulties in written expression increased the general education reading curriculum but also provides them their self-confidence in completing the writing of a text with the tools to engage in meaningful academic discussions with coherence. with their peers, thus furthering their social and educational In the same vein, Parker and Kamps (2011) analyzed written communication goals. tasks with self-monitoring to teach functional skills and verbal Similarly, Raver et al. (2014), in their study of children interactions to two students with autism in social settings with with profound hearing loss, found that the majority of these peers. The researchers found positive effects on developing children benefited from structured opportunities of interaction learning skills in children with SEN and observed that pupils with typically hearing children to learn verbal skills, and both had improved basic skills (language, mathematics, environmental groups improved behavior in prelinguistic interventions. awareness, autonomy, and social skills). These results are consistent with those obtained by Stanton-Chapman et al. (2008) in their study on the effects of a multicomponent intervention Impact on Science Learning and strategy to increase peer-directed social communication in eight Mathematical Thinking children at risk of poor language and social skills development. As shown in the previously mentioned studies, a relevant aspect The results of this study indicated that the children had increased to improve the quality of learning for students with SEN in vocabulary, frequency of verbal behavior, and social competence, inclusive settings is to identify what specific supports can help especially in establishing friendships. them participate and interact effectively in learning activities. Research especially highlights the impact of learning This is relevant for language-related learning and mathematics interactions on language and communication for students and science learning. Lei et al. (2020) studied the case of a fifth- with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Nahmias et al. (2014) grade student dually classified as English Learner (English would examined the association between cognitive outcomes and the be her second language) and Learning Disabilities to analyze receipt of early intervention for students with ASD in three the types of educational scaffolds that mathematics teachers settings: with other students with autism, with students with can use to support multiplicative reasoning effectively. Four various disabilities, and in inclusive settings. The main finding types of teacher scaffolding (visual, linguistic, interactive and was that children in inclusive settings experienced greater kinesthetic) were studied during seven sessions of mathematical average gains in cognitive scores, especially in language and instruction. In turn, three different interaction contexts were social communication, than did some children who attended considered for the interactive scaffolding: (1) teacher-student classrooms without typically developing peers. These results interaction, (2) student-student interaction, and (3) small group were most visible in children with more severe social disabilities, interaction. Small-group interaction was the most effective with lower adaptive behavior skills, and in those with at interaction context, as the student showed an increased ability least some form of expressive or receptive communication. to think and respond to multiplicative problems in small group Children with more severe social disorders in inclusive settings contexts. Moreover, kinesthetic and linguistic scaffolds were benefited from the more sophisticated social, emotional, and found to be the most beneficial in helping the student cultivate adaptive strategies displayed by their peers. Thus, Nahmias mathematical thinking, with both concrete and abstract units. et al. (2014) noted that inclusive schooling for children with These types of scaffolds also contributed to generating more ASD increased opportunities to interact with and learn from elaborate language use of mathematical content. typically developing peers, which may be significant for their Another study that demonstrates the impact of interactive cognitive development. The authors noted that mixed disability educational contexts in improving the learning of children placement could be inadequate for children with autism with ASD is that carried out by Lambert et al. (2020) with spectrum disorders because it provides the fewest opportunities a fifth-grade student with autism. The authors demonstrated Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 5 April 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 674033 Ugalde et al. Interactions for SEN Children Learning how, thanks to an intervention in the classroom in which with four high school students with autism spectrum disorder the participation rules were made more explicit and additional (ASD), looking at social interactions with peers and academic scaffolds (such as greater responsibility of the peers and more engagement. The researchers used momentary time sampling to collaborative actions) were incorporated, the child became able measure academic engagement to document whether the student to explain his mathematical thinking in multiple contexts. was consistently engaged, inconsistently engaged, or disengaged. Similar improvements were observed by Wu et al. (2020) when The overall results indicated that all four students increased analyzing the impact of a peer-mediated intervention (PMI) on social interactions with their peers, while academic engagement the learning of science by students with cognitive disabilities. increased or was maintained for three of the students. According Nine non-disabled peers taught scientific concepts to their to the authors, these results suggest that a greater emphasis on disabled peers through questions about the content and modeling the design and delivery of academic support is needed to further and encouraged their peers to use the iPad-SGD. The results improve learning outcomes. In light of the results, peer support showed that peer participation, aided by augmentative and strategies should be considered for this purpose. alternative communication (AAC) and using speech-generating devices (SGDs), managed to improve the communication of the target participants with their peers during the scientific DISCUSSION experiments and improved the specific scientific knowledge of the participants. The literature review carried out finds that interactive learning Finally, the case study published by McLure (2020) presents environments have a positive impact on improving academic the experience of a student with severe special educational needs learning and cognitive skills development in children with in accessing science learning with the thinking frames approach SEN. Although further research is needed on this aspect, (TFA), in which students are organized into heterogeneous the 17 selected studies shed light on the importance of groups to predict the outcome of carefully designed problems. To implementing interaction-based learning environments. Their do so, they discuss with their peers their conceptions and contrast benefits have been evidenced for developing language, literacy, them with those of the others, generating a social construction and communication skills for SEN pupils (Whalon and Hart, of knowledge. The results of the study revealed improvements 2011, among others; Chen et al., 2020; Ferguson et al., 2020), for in various aspects for all students, which were possible due to the acquisition of mathematical competence and science learning the interactions established for the collaborative elaboration of (Lambert et al., 2020; Lei et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2020) and for productions. Especially for students with SEN, because of peer enhancing engagement in learning (Bock, 2007; Carter et al., interactions and support, students experienced improvements 2017). in participation in small and whole groups, perception of self- One of the aspects in the reviewed studies is the key relevance efficacy and classroom assessment activities. of the interaction between peers when it allows students to support each other and creates opportunities for learning from each other collaboratively. This is relevant because, as Gee Impact on Enhancing Academic et al. (2020) emphasize, learners with SEN tend to reduce the Engagement extent of their interactions when they are in segregated settings. The studies analyzed also report results of peer support However, the opposite occurs in inclusive environments, where and other focused interventions in terms of engagement interactions increase. In this regard, research shows that it is in academic learning and interactive learning situations. In necessary not only to allow students with and without special this regard, the researchers noted that social interactions needs to interact but also to provide peers who accompany in learning contexts could create additional communication students with functional diversity with tools so that they opportunities for promoting inclusion and learning for students can manage interactive situations and provide the necessary with disabilities, nurturing other social behaviors, and raising support (Carter et al., 2017). This would empower students engagement in educational activities (Carter et al., 2015, 2017; with disabilities to communicate effectively with peers and Andzik et al., 2016). provide peers with tools to help their classmates, which are One of these studies (Bock, 2007) examined the effect of a both vital factors for the cognitive and learning development social-behavioral learning strategy intervention (Stop-Observe- of students with SEN. This is consistent with other studies Deliberate-Deliver-Act; SODA) on the interaction skills for that reinforce the idea that when teachers promote educational engaging in cooperative learning activities, playing board games, actions that increase student interactions oriented to learning, and visiting peers during lunch of a high school student with they can increase levels of instrumental learning (Ni Bhroin, Asperger syndrome (AS). The child participated in cooperative 2013), including language learning (Purcell-Gates et al., 2011) or learning activities with peers in a cooperative learning group. The mathematical skills (Stein et al., 2015). Importantly, our review of study found that the participant had a higher percentage of time research also found that benefits often do not appear separately, spent learning cooperatively, playing board games, and visiting but improvements in communication, literacy, scientific or during lunch when he began SODA training. Additionally, the mathematical learning and engagement in learning situations can effects were maintained after the intervention. occur simultaneously as a result of participating in interactive Another study (Carter et al., 2017) examined the impact learning environments. In addition, the benefits reported are not and social validity of peer support-based student arrangements limited to specific disabilities or special needs; on the contrary, Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 6 April 2021 | Volume 12 | Article 674033 Ugalde et al. Interactions for SEN Children Learning the studies reviewed covered a wide range of learning difficulties interactive learning can increase these students’ participation (related to autism, hearing loss, intellectual disabilities, learning in shared learning settings while enhancing their learning and disabilities, and other special needs) and, more importantly, we cognitive development. found that the impact of the interactive learning situations helped However, we cannot ignore the limitations of this study. students’ progress in the areas that were precisely more affected As can be seen in Table 1, the vast majority of the collected due to their disability (such as communication in the case of research has been developed in the United States. Future research students with autism and hearing loss or literacy in the case of should focus its efforts on broadening this topic’s study contexts, students with a learning disability). This indicates that interactive analyzing the effects of interactive learning context on students learning environments can contribute to reducing the impact of with SEN in other countries. In this regard, it should also students’ disabilities on their learning and development. be taken into account that the majority of articles in the Furthermore, research shows that classroom interactions are platforms on which the searches have been carried out are positive not only when they occur between people directly written in English, which raises the question of whether there involved in the school, such as teachers and pupils, but also may be studies conducted in other countries and published when they involve other people from the community, as shown in other languages and journals that are not included in the in the study by García-Carrión et al. (2016) on the impact of databases used in this study. Finally, it should be taken into the Dialogic Literary Gatherings and the Interactive Groups to account that the concept of interaction is broad so that the enhancing the learning and expectations of students with SEN. articles collected gather evidence referring to different types In this regard, it is also important to note that interactive learning of interaction and with different types of special needs. It environments that are effective with students with SEN, such as would be interesting if future research could continue to DLG, are also effective for the rest of the students, contributing investigate the ideal characteristics that the different contexts to the emergence of school-relevant language and literacy for and agents involved in these interactions should meet to obtain all students (Lopez de Aguileta, 2019). Boyle et al. (2019) also the best learning outcomes for students with SEN and if the pointed out the benefits of shared reading, not only with teachers research samples could represent the greatest possible diversity but also with parents, in improving literacy skills in children with of these students. ASD. These results are congruent with the indications gathered in The Information and Communication Technology for inclusion DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT report (European Agency for Special Needs Inclusive Education, 2013), in which it is indicated that schools need to involve a The original contributions presented in the study are included greater diversity of agents, creating formal and informal networks in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be that support their practice and working as communities of directed to the corresponding author/s. practice. Within these communities, all those individuals or organizations that share a common interest participate, including AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS families, which can be involved in the development of proposals for students. In these communities, ideas and ways of working LP: conceptualization. MS-G, LU, and BV-C: methodology, can be exchanged, which help identify problems and solutions. formal analysis, and writing—review and editing. MS-G: Families must be part of these communities and be involved in data curation. BV-C: writing—original draft preparation. All the development of proposals for students. In this way, the report authors have read and agreed to the published version of is committed to creating working models that involve students, the manuscript. teachers, parents, and other professionals working together to educate all students. FUNDING According to the European Agency for Special Needs Inclusive Education (2011), students’ active participation is INTER-ACT research was funded by the Spanish National one key element to achieve the objective of implementing Program for Research aimed at the Challenges of Society, inclusive education for all. The conclusions of this research Ministry of Science and Innovation, grant number: EDU2017- review contribute to this aim by showing how contexts of 88666-R. REFERENCES Berry, R. A. W., and Englert, C. S. (2005). Designing conversation: book discussions in a primary inclusion classroom. Learn. Disabil. Quart. 28, 35–58. Ainscow, M. (2005). Developing inclusive education systems: what are the levers doi: 10.2307/4126972 for change? J. Educ. Change 6, 109–124. doi: 10.1007/s10833-005-1298-4 Bock, M. A. (2007). A social—behavioral learning strategy intervention for a child Andzik, N. R., Chung, Y.-C., and Kranak, M. P. (2016). 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