How can schools create stability for autistic learners — even when the day doesn’t go to plan?
In this guest blog, NASS Partner LuxAI shares how special schools are using innovative assistive technology to create calm, predictable, and engaging learning environments for autistic learners. One example is QTrobot — an AI-enhanced social robot designed to support consistency and reduce anxiety through structured, non-judgmental interactions. Recently recognised by UNESCO as a best practice in inclusive education, QTrobot is already being used in several NASS member schools
LuxAI will be joining us as a silver sponsor at the NASS Conference 2025 in Bristol this October and has recently launched a NASS Ambassador School Programme that enables schools to embed QTrobot for a full academic year on a subsidised basis. You can find more details in the NASS Member Zone under Member Offers.
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We know that for many autistic learners, the world can feel unpredictable, overwhelming, and challenging to navigate. Changes in routine — even seemingly minor ones — can lead to anxiety, distress, and disengagement from learning. For these students, structure, familiarity, and routine aren’t just helpful; they are essential foundations for wellbeing and progress.
Yet in many school environments, maintaining absolute consistency can feel like an impossible task. Staff sickness, specialist shortages, timetable changes, or unexpected events can all disrupt carefully planned routines. This raises a crucial question: how can schools provide the predictability these learners need, even when circumstances aren’t always within their control?
Why Routine Matters in Autism Education
Predictability offers more than comfort — it plays an active role in learning. A well-structured, familiar routine can:
- Support emotional regulation: Reducing anxiety and helping students feel safe and in control of their environment.
- Enhance engagement: Allowing learners to focus on tasks, rather than being preoccupied by uncertainty.
- Build trust: Establishing reliable patterns of interaction that foster positive relationships between students and adults.
- Support skill generalisation: Providing repeated, structured opportunities to embed learning across different contexts.
When learners know what to expect, they are better able to participate meaningfully and confidently in their education.
The Real-World Challenge for Schools
Despite best efforts, absolute consistency is difficult to maintain in any educational setting. Teacher absences, fluctuating access to specialists, and the complex logistics of supporting learners with diverse needs, all present challenges to sustaining the kind of stable environment many autistic students require.
Teachers, SENCOs, and support staff often carry the emotional labour of holding these routines together — managing transitions, responding to anxiety, and adapting plans on the spot when things change unexpectedly. While this flexibility is a testament to the skill and care of educators, it also highlights the need for additional strategies that can help maintain consistency when human factors are stretched.
The Role of Technology in Supporting Routine
While no technology can replace the empathy, expertise, or relationships that sit at the heart of great teaching, some schools are exploring how digital tools and assistive technologies can offer an extra layer of consistency when circumstances make this challenging.
Visual schedules and routine-based apps, immersive VR experiences that help students rehearse new situations, and other structured digital supports are increasingly being used to strengthen routine and reduce anxiety.
One approach that has emerged in recent years is the use of social robotics — assistive technologies specifically designed to deliver predictable, non-judgmental interactions.
Among these are the humanoid robots such as QTrobot, highlighted in UNESCO’s global review of best practices in inclusive education. It recognised its role in supporting communication, attention, and emotional regulation in students with autism and complex needs.
The report featured multiple NASS member schools, including those within Outcomes First Group, where QTrobot has been adopted across a number of settings to address challenges in sustaining structured delivery amid staffing pressures. Educators reported that the robot’s consistent delivery and engaging persona not only increased attention and participation in sessions but also helped learners better manage transitions and reduce anxiety. As one staff member reflected:
“QTrobot provided a predictable and non-threatening interaction style that supported pupils who were otherwise reluctant to engage with adults.”
These robots maintain a calm, consistent interaction style, delivering structured activities that can be repeated as often as needed without variation. For students who may feel anxious about social unpredictability, working with a robot that always behaves in the same way — with no surprises — can help create a sense of safety and control. Case studies featured in the UNESCO report, including from autism-specialist schools in the UK, suggest that this predictability can play a key role in enabling learners to participate, practise new skills, and build confidence over time.
Blending Human Expertise with Digital Support
Importantly, technologies like social robotics are not positioned as replacements for the specialist support of teachers, therapists, or teaching assistants. Instead, they can supplement human-led approaches, providing additional consistency where staffing, availability, or practical challenges might otherwise lead to gaps.
By handling structured routines, offering repetition without frustration, and providing familiar interaction styles, these tools help sustain the predictable environments that so many learners with autism need — while freeing up valuable teacher time for relational, creative, and adaptive work.
Prioritising Predictability in SEND Strategy
At a time when the SEND sector continues to face rising learner needs alongside recruitment challenges, finding ways to embed predictability into teaching and therapeutic strategies remains vital. Whether through visual aids, immersive rehearsals, or assistive technologies like social robotics, giving learners the security of routine continues to be one of the most effective ways we can support emotional wellbeing, engagement, and educational progress.
As schools explore how best to meet these complex needs, the conversation around how technology can help maintain consistency — while keeping learners at the heart of every decision — is an important one to keep alive.