Autism: Considerations for the Future Education of Children with Autism in Mainstream Schools: Experiences from Research in Ireland

The quality agenda remains at the heart of global education discourse [1]. Including children with special educational needs in mainstream education provision is one of the key tenets of advanced education systems internationally. In particular the inclusion of children with autism presents particular challenges for education systems globally. The future inclusion of children with autism in mainstream education is dependant on the ability of schools to provide quality education for both children with autism and children who do not have autism in the same classroom [2]. In this paper, a theoretical framework for autism is linked to implications for school systems and teachers’ practice in the classroom in providing quality education experiences for children with autism and their peers who do not have autism. This paper is based on research conducted by the author in ten schools in Ireland with forty-two children with autism, aged from three years and nine months to sixteen years and eight months with a range of additional needs ranging from mild to severe to profound general learning disabilities, language delay and challenging behaviour. Data from twenty individual semi-structured interviews with school principals and teachers of children with autism, ten focus-group interviews with other teachers in the schools, photographic classroom data and video-data comprising periods of classroom observation of twenty-six to fifty-four minutes were collected. Individual children's on-task behaviour was determined from the video data through a two-minute time-sampling process. Analysis of the data suggests that children's on-task behaviour is optimised when the following factors are a feature of practice: the physical layout, organisation and environmental stimuli of the classroom are addressed; teaching approaches and strategies consider the visual learning style of children with autism; a range of teaching approaches and strategies is used; the sensory and perceptual differences of children with autism are accommodated and classroom assistant support is effectively managed.