Abstract:

In the Irish education system, autistic children are supported in a range of different learning environments and in recent years, Ireland has seen a significant change and investment in school provision as part of the ongoing journey towards inclusion. Successful inclusion however entails recognising and providing the appropriate support for teachers, as well as children, by minimising and removing any barriers to participation and learning. Understanding the uniqueness of each autistic child is fundamental to their learning but identifying their needs in social communication and measuring the effectiveness of the strategies used to support them are identified as challenges for teachers in this research. The appropriate practices, recommended for teachers of autistic children should have a research base, with evidence of their effectiveness to show what works to support learning. The variety of practices promoted to support autistic children poses a difficulty for teachers as they must seek out and adopt findings from research to improve educational outcomes for autistic children. Furthermore, there is a difference between clinic settings, where research is often conducted, to actual classrooms, which can further impact teachers implementing evidence-based practices. The theme of Trial and Error is used to capture the findings from a mixed methods national survey of Irish primary school teachers which sought out the contributing factors that influence the adoption of evidence-based practices for teachers of autistic children. The respondents’ perspectives are captured by the subthemes of the individuality of the autistic child and the challenges implementing evidence-based practices. This research adopted a mixed methods convergent research design whereby the analysis of quantitative data and qualitative data were treated separately, and then integrated to produce findings. Descriptive statistics of the quantitative data were used initially to uncover the relevant information for the research questions. Subsequently, the inferential analysis of the survey results highlighted interesting features of the data which warranted further detailed investigation with thematic analysis. Both sets of findings were further subjected to interpretive analysis, which uncovered rich, relevant information. The teachers in the study reported on several complexities that are noted as potential influential factors in the use of evidence-based practices to support social communication competency for autistic children. This paper reports on the discussion of two such complexities related to the individuality of each autistic child and the practicalities of implementing evidence-based practices in the classroom. The findings make a valuable contribution to educational discourse on learning and teaching for young autistic children, their teachers and school communities, against the changing landscape of inclusive special education in Ireland.

Keywords:

Autism, education, inclusion, evidence-based practices, teachers.