What autistic people think should be prioritised in education for autistic learners
The education of autistic children and young people in western societies has been heavily influenced by a medicalised understanding of autism. This means considering autism as a disorder, with a focus on correcting autistic people’s perceived lacks, rather than building on their strengths.
Autistic learners’ strengths, interests, preferences, goals and values were typically sidelined. Making the learner appear less autistic was the main focus.
This included increasing eye contact and building neurotypical social skills. It involved attempting to reduce stimming: self-stimulatory behaviour, which can include chewing on objects, fidgeting, watching moving objects, and making repetitive sounds.
Read more: Autistic stimming explained – and why stopping it can lead to burnout
However, the neurodiversity movement – a social advocacy movement that promotes the idea that neurological differences are an expected and normal part of human variation – has challenged these assumptions. Instead of the autistic learner being viewed as disabled, it suggests the educational environment can be disabling for the autistic learner.
This contrasts with the past when school norms typically did not support the strengths and needs of autistic learners. These children were expected to fit in.
What autistic people want
The autistic voice has been largely missing from educational research and policymaking. My research study with colleagues, co-produced with autistic researchers, set out to change this. We wanted to identify the educational priorities of adult members of the autistic community, as well as teachers supporting autistic learners, in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
We did this by carrying out a survey comprising 34 autistic adults with no role in education (non-educators), ten autistic educators, and 65 non-autistic educators who supported autistic learners. We asked them about priority goals to be included in individual education plans for autistic learners.
The individual education plan is the foundation of inclusive and special education in many countries. It serves as an educational map that charts the learner’s current level of performance and their annual goals. It lays out the steps and resources needed to reach these goals.
In countries such as Finland, the US and UK, an individual learning plan is legally mandated for all learners who make use of special education services. However, this is not the case in the Republic of Ireland. Provisions were made in the 2004 Education for Persons with Special Education Needs Act. Over 20 years later, though, individual education plans are still not compulsory, regulated or assessed in the Republic of Ireland.
This lack of oversight has occurred against the backdrop of a 600% increase in special classes in the Republic of Ireland from 2013 to 2023. Autism classes accounted for 89% of these – 2,466 classes out of a total of 2,754.
Before carrying out the survey, we expected very little overlap in the goal priorities of autistic respondents and non-autistic respondents. We were wrong. Our findings clearly showed significant overlap in the priorities across the groups.
Our survey respondents prioritised goals that promote autonomy, social inclusion and communication. They saw these goals as contributing positively to autistic wellbeing.
On the other hand, academic goals did not feature as a priority for the vast majority of respondents. Academic goals include reading comprehension, writing skills, critical thinking, time management, problem solving and maths skills.
It could be argued that this does a disservice to the educational potential of autistic learners. However, while academic goals are important, wellbeing must come first. Without a strong foundation of physical and mental health, meaningful academic success is difficult to achieve.
Finally, all groups actively discouraged educational goals that focused on improving eye contact and reducing stimming. The overriding consensus was that a focus on changing these aspects of behaviour is detrimental to a learner’s ability to work towards meaningful and functional educational goals including independence, wellbeing and social inclusion.
Prioritising wellbeing
There is growing support for prioritising wellbeing, communication, socialisation and daily living skills over more academic goals. However, teachers may not be equipped to design, teach and monitor goals that align with these priorities of the autistic community.
Teachers in a UK study cited several barriers to supporting autistic learners in their classrooms. Their greatest frustration came from having limited access to autism-specific knowledge and expertise during their initial teacher training.
Similar frustrations were also reported among Irish teachers. Many teachers in the study thought a specialised qualification should be compulsory for those teaching in autism classes.
However, autism prevalence rates are on the rise, and there is an international trend towards inclusive education – educating children with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms. This means there is a growing likelihood that teachers will find themselves supporting autistic learners.
Research shows that teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and skills towards inclusion are improved if they can go on placements during their training to schools that emphasise a culture of inclusion.
Partnerships between universities and schools could be an important way to make this happen. This could help empower student teachers to go on to design and support effective individual education plans for their autistic learners.
However, without a legal mandate for individual education plans in the Republic of Ireland, initial teacher education and teacher professional development programmes will continue to struggle to effectively prepare teachers for this part of their role.
Laura Gormley works as an assistant professor in Dublin City university and received seed funding from SCoTENS (The Standing Conference on Teacher Education, North and South) to carry out this study.