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Vuorovaikutuskumppanit eivät aina vastaa autismikirjon lasten aloitteisiin. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, millaisia päällekkäistyviä vuorovaikutuksellisia projekteja koulunkäynninohjaajalla ja autismikirjon oppilaalla oli silloin, kun ohjaaja ei vastannut oppilaan sosiaaliseen aloitteeseen. Aineistona oli laadullisen sisällönanalyysin keinoin analysoidut videotaltioinnit, jotka koostuivat kolmen autismikirjon oppilaan ja heidän henkilökohtaisten koulunkäynninohjaajiensa vuorovaikutuksesta. Tulosten mukaan lähes puolessa tilanteista vastaamattomuuteen liittyi koulunkäynninohjaajan päällekkäistyvä projekti, joka esti vastaamista tai teki vastaamattomuuden ohjaajan näkökulmasta tarkoituksenmukaiseksi. Aloitteisiin vastaamattomuuden yksilökeskeinen tarkastelu ei ole näin ollen riittävää, koska vastaamattomuutta rakentavat myös vuorovaikutuskumppanin institutionaalinen rooli, kasvatukselliset tavoitteet ja projektien suhde toisiinsa.

Digital literacy refers to a set of competencies related to the skilled use of computers and information technology. Low digital skills can be a barrier for older adults’ full participation in a digital society, and COVID-19 has increased this risk of social exclusion. Older adults’ digital inclusion is a complex process that consists of the interplay of structural and individual factors. The ACCESS project unwrapped the complexity of the process and developed an innovative, multilevel model that illustrates how societal, institutional, material and pedagogical aspects shape adults’ appropriation of digital literacy. A holistic model describes factors contributing to older adults’ digital literacy, acknowledging sociocultural contexts, environments, learning settings and instruction practices for learning digital literacy. Instead of seeing older adults’ reasons for learning digital skills purely as individual choice, this model recognizes the interpersonal, institutional and societal aspects that implicitly or explicitly influence older adults’ acquisition of digital literacy. The results offer a tool for stakeholders, the research community, companies, designers and other relevant stakeholders to consider digital skills and the given support. It demands diverse communication between different stakeholders about the things that should be discussed when organizing digital support in digitalized societies.

Rapid development of digital technologies affects the lives of all people and often leads to people being in unequal positions regarding digital skills training opportunities. Older adults’ motivat...

Quality factors are the subject of increasing interest in the research and practice of early childhood education and care (ECEC). The purpose of the article is to emphasize the importance of the children's voice in relation to the quality of ECEC. This article focuses on children's negative experiences of ECEC as they can be used to improve services and increase children's wellbeing. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire from 2500 children aged 2-6 years (girls 50.4%) in Finland. The data was analysed using qualitative and quantitative content analysis. According to the results, children mentioned both structural and process factors. Peer interaction among children was mentioned the most when referring to negative experiences in ECEC. We conclude that children's negative experiences provide an opportunity for ECEC professionals to support children's resilience and a sense of belonging, which are important elements in the process quality of ECEC.

Research abounds on deploying interventions to support peer interactions between children on the autism spectrum (AS) and neurotypical children [1‐2]. Technological advancements such as eye tracking devices have provided ample affordances to the field of autism research in terms of facilitating the collection of insightful data related to the gaze-based interaction behaviour of children on the AS [3]. Yet, further empirical understanding on how children interact within inclusive educational contexts is needed [4]. Addressing this gap, we present our research study set in a naturalistic inclusive school environment in which small groups of three children interact playing a boardgame, Alias, while wearing mobile eye tracking glasses. Alias is a word game during which a person guesses the word that another person is explaining by giving them hints and tips. In our study, we analysed the game play by focusing on 3 roles: an explainer, as the person giving clues for a guesser to guess what the word was, while an observer watched the interactions. 25 children (age 10‐12 years, 4th ‐ 5th grade, 15 males) from 3 different schools in Finland participated in the study. For data analysis, 2 categories were used: children with no diagnosis (n=19) and children on the autism spectrum (AS) (n=6). 43 data collection sessions of about 45 minutes each were carried out. Each session was set so that a small inclusive group of 3 children, each wearing mobile eye tracking glasses (Tobii Glasses 2), engaged for 10 minutes in a ludative task planned by the researchers and for 25 minutes in a curricular task planned by the teacher. Here we present the analysis of 9 sessions during which Alias was used. The mobile eye tracking glasses data collected was coded using Tobii Pro Lab. We analysed the children’s gaze behaviour from the perspective of the role taken, focusing on the proportion of time that the children spent looking at three areas of interest: other children’s faces, the task (i.e., the table where the game cards were placed) and the surrounding environment area. The statistical analysis of the coded data (i.e., areas of interests) was carried out using SPSS, and within-group comparisons were conducted with related samples Friedman’s two-way analysis of variance by ranks, with Dunn’s pairwise post hoc test with Bonferroni correction. Results show promising insights on the gaze-based interactions behaviour of children on the AS when compared with neurotypical peers, including a perceived sensitivity to the requirements of the game roles that they play. Our work contributes towards empirical research implementations of mobile eye tracking glasses to understand natural peer interactions in inclusive educational environments. The insights obtained could support teachers’ classroom practices to foster children’s collaborative work in inclusive educational contexts.

The Finnish education system is based on equity, and the basic education act emphasises the inclusion and full participation of all pupils in education. Social participation of SEN students is a ke...

In this study, we investigated how students manage their lack of/insufficient understanding of the content of a mathematical task with the aim of reaching shared understanding and epistemic balance in peer interaction. The data consist of recordings collected during a mathematics project (6 × 75 minutes) in a Finnish lower secondary school. The findings, drawing on conversation analysis, showed two markedly different sequence trajectories: (1) how interaction between a K+ and a K− (more/less knowledgeable) student proceeded relatively smoothly when these positions were accepted by both participants, and consequently the K+ led epistemic work by designing turns that resembled teachers’ practices; and (2) how the K+/K− interaction became extended when a K− challenged the K+’s knowledge claims, and furthermore, how a K− steered the epistemic work using polar and wh-interrogatives. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the ways the management of epistemic imbalance can progress during peer group work.

The physical activity (PA) and health behaviours among pupils in special education classes and schools (SECS) is largely understudied. The purpose of this study is to report the process of converting PA and health surveys that can be comparable to the general population. A series of studies were taken. 1. Usability of the survey in SECS, 2. Pilot study data collection, 3. Further testing with a simple version, 4. National data collection among pupils in SECS. Items from the Washington Group Child Functioning Module (CFM) were continuously developed. Data collected at each stage were used to guide the development of each sequential study. Feasibility of conducting data collection were based on time spent and ease of understanding the survey items. Visual analogue scales and simplified items were added. Almost half of the pupils (n=396/889) completed the simplified version and did so within a class period. Teachers reported positively about the administration of surveys. In national representative surveys, it is important to have clear instructions for administering surveys. Pupils in SECS may need assistance to understand the questions in the surveys and more testing is needed to investigate the effects it has on survey completion. L’activité physique (AP) et les comportements de santé des élèves des classes et des écoles d’éducation spéciale (SECS) sont largement sous-étudiés. Le but de cette étude est de rendre compte du processus d’adaptation à ce public des enquêtes réalisées en population générale pour en améliorer la faisabilité et la comparabilité.Une série d’études a été réalisée. 1. Adaptation et test de l’enquête dans le SECS, 2. Recueil des données de l’étude pilote, 3. Tests supplémentaires pour une version simplifiée, 4. Recueil national des données auprès des élèves du SECS. Les items du Washington Group Child Functioning Module (CFM) ont été progressivement améliorés. Des échelles visuelles analogiques et des items simplifiés ont été ajoutés. Le temps passé à répondre et la facilité de compréhension des questions ont été retenus comme critères de faisabilité de l’enquête. Près de la moitié des élèves (n=396/889) ont terminé la version simplifiée et ce, sur un temps de classe. De plus, les enseignants ont fait un retour positif sur la passation de l’enquête. Dans les enquêtes représentatives nationales, les instructions données doivent être claires. Les élèves du SECS peuvent avoir besoin d’aide pour comprendre les questions posées et des investigations supplémentaires sont nécessaires pour étudier les effets de cette aide sur la réalisation des enquêtes.

Technology-enhanced environments are increasingly used to enhance the interaction skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet little is known about how technology use influe...

Research on people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (henceforth autism) is often based upon biomedical understanding. Such understanding tends to view the characteristics related to autism diagnosis, such as the lack of or atypical use of speech, as a sign of incompetence that can be reduced as an underlying pathology of an individual. However, little research has explicitly investigated how methodological decisions in research might influence the perception of these characteristics. This paper draws on two separate research cases involving minimally verbal children with autism to examine how methodological decisions in research design, data collection, data analysis, and data interpretation influence the construction of communicative (in)competence in these children. The paper encourages researchers to carefully consider and reflect on the methodological decisions they make throughout the research process.

This article reports the results of a study that investigated junior high school students’ experiences with learning in mathematics lessons that were based on self-guidance, use of technology, and ...

Recent studies on gaze behaviours in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have utilised “live eye tracking.” Such research has focused on generating quantitative eye tracking measurements, which provide limited (if any) qualitative contextual details of the actual interactions in which gaze occurs. This article presents a novel methodological approach that combines live eye tracking with qualitative interaction analysis, multimodally informed conversation analysis. Drawing on eye tracking and wide-angle video recordings, this combination renders visible some of the functions, or what gaze “does,” in interactional situations. The participants include three children with ASD and their adult co-participants during body-movement gaming sessions. The article demonstrates how quantitative eye tracking research can be extended qualitatively using a microanalytic interaction analysis to recontextualise the gaze shifts identified. The findings in this article show that the co-participants treat a child’s gaze shifts differently depending on when these occur in a stream of other action. The study suggests that introducing this qualitative dimension to eye tracking research could increase its ecological validity and offer new insight into gaze behaviours in ASD. peerReviewed

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reportedly have difficulties in responding to bids for joint attention, notably in following pointing gestures. Previous studies have predominantly built on structured observation measures and predefined coding categories to measure children’s responsiveness to gestures. However, how these gestures are designed and what detailed interactional work they can accomplish have received less attention. In this paper, we use a multimodal approach to conversation analysis (CA) to investigate how educators design their use of pointing in interactions involving school-aged children with ASD or autistic features. The analysis shows that pointing had specific sequential implications for the children beyond mere attention sharing. Occasionally, the co-occurring talk and pointing led to ambiguities when a child was interpreting their interactional connotations, specifically when the pointing gesture lacked salience. The study demonstrates that the CA approach can increase understanding of how to facilitate the establishment of joint attention.

Digipack Pro is a backpack that facilitates youngsters' social interactions and promotes playful activities during social encounters. It combines wearables technologies with universal design practices to transform an everyday item into a tool that supports social inclusion and well-being. Here we present our contextualisation of the Digipack Pro from several ideas of children around the world on issues of health, gaming and well-being.

This paper analyzes and summarizes the educational status of children with ASD in China from several aspects such as relevant educational theories, relevant intervention methods, school education, family education, and training. Inclusion is the official educational policy in Finland, and schools at all levels of the educational system are obliged to support the learning of all children. However, the practical implementation of inclusion is taking place slowly. Thus, many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in Finland study in special classrooms. However, the challenging factors in the education of children with ASD in both China and Finland are the relatively low intensity of the interventions provided, regional differences in the availability of interventions, and teachers’ lack of knowledge of autism and pedagogical methods to teach children with ASD. For this reason, more work is needed to ensure sufficient rehabilitation services and support for children with ASD. In addition, teachers and principals, as the central actors in organizing schoolwork, need more information on good administrative and pedagogical practices that facilitate multi-professional collaboration to support children with ASD in inclusive settings.

This chapter introduces teaching methods and practices for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Finnish comprehensive school. The chapter begins with a short introduction to curricula that give the overall guidelines for teaching. After that, learning theories and teaching methods that are commonly used in Finland are discussed. The predominant learning conceptions in Finland are empiristic and rationalistic approaches, such as behaviorism and cognitive science. Therefore, the practices stemming from these approaches are introduced. Structured teaching, often simply referred as structuring, which is based on the Training and Education of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children (TEACCH) method is discussed, in particular, as it is the most commonly used method in the instruction of children with ASD in Finland. A special emphasis is also on the introduction of variation in the use of structuring in supporting the overall learning as well as the communication and interaction of children with ASD. The chapter also introduces the use of technology and home-school collaboration as means to enhance the learning of children with ASD. Finally, two fictional case stories illustrate the education and typical schooldays of children with ASD in Finland.

This chapter introduces the key elements of the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2014) and describes how the education of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is individualized in accordance with the national curriculum. The Finnish National Core Curriculum regulates the education of all children in basic education in Finland. The curriculum has been renewed several times, and the latest renewed curriculum has been implemented since August 2016. Children with ASD often need individualization and support for learning. Education for children with ASD can be individualized in one or more subjects, or a child can study according to a completely individualized syllabus. The individualization can also be done by delaying or lengthening the basic education of children with ASD. The three-tiered support model, which is being introduced in a detailed way, includes procedures for organizing individualized services for children with ASD. The individualized curriculum for a child with ASD is illustrated with two case stories at the end of the chapter.

This chapter provides an overview of the policy and legislation that govern education in Finland. This policy and legislation are also the basis for the education of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For the last 10 years, the Finnish educational system has been considered one of the most successful in the world according to Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) assessments. Several factors have contributed to the achieved outcomes. First, quality and equality in education are highly respected in Finland, and they are seen to be key elements that guarantee the well-being of its citizens. Second, the autonomy of the municipalities, schools, and teachers in building and implementing curricula according to local needs gives freedom and respect for teachers in Finnish society and motivates teachers to provide high-quality education to all children. Third, the three-tiered support model for children with special educational needs, such as ASD, facilitates the inclusion of all children into mainstream schooling and supports teachers to individualize education according to each child’s needs. All these aspects are discussed in this chapter. Finally, the structure of the Finnish school system and education providers is briefly introduced.

Inclusion is the official educational policy in Finland, and since 2011, a new systematic way of organizing support, a so-called three-tiered support model, has been implemented. The chapter introduces how the new model changed the educational placement procedures and discusses how the educational placement of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is planned and implemented within the framework of the three-tiered support model. The options for placement are: (a) placement in a mainstream classroom with the help of general, intensified or special support, depending on the child’s needs; (b) placement in a special classroom including support, for example, from a part-time special education teacher; or (c) placement in a special school with additional support services, such as part-time special education. The placement can also be organized in a flexible manner, which means that a child can study, for example, 50% of his or her lessons during 1 day in a mainstream classroom and the rest of the lessons in a special classroom. Nevertheless, the educational placement of a child with ASD is always decided individually, and, whenever possible, placement is to be in a mainstream classroom.

Digitalization of public services affects daily life of older adults since adequate digital skills are required in using the digital devices and services. Many organizations have reacted to the growing need of older adults to receive support in using digital services by offering guidance in digital skills. The knowledge of how older adults learn help in successfully organizing digital skills guidance. In this presentation we will introduce the variety of concepts and theories concerning digital skills learning of older adults. We will also share results of peer guidance sessions of older adults from the viewpoints of three different learning theories. Data is collected from eight focus group interviews (N = 42, 62-79 years old). Data was analyzed using theory-driven content analysis. According to the results, peer tutors applied all three learning theoretical approaches in digital skills guidance. Furthermore, peer tutors paid attention to characteristics of ageing that affect learning. At best, peer tutoring sessions were constructed as shared learning practices of both tutors and tutees. Results provide new information about how to support older adults in peer tutoring sessions. Research results can be used in educating peer tutors and teachers of older adults as well as in developing support systems in implementation of digital public services. This research is a part of ACCESS project in which digital skills learning of older adults is investigated in four European countries. The ACCESS project is funded by EU Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) “More Years, Better Lives” The Potential and Challenges of Demographic Change.

Background The Sally–Anne test has been extensively used to examine children's theory of mind understanding. Many task-related factors have been suggested to impact children's performance on this test. Yet little is known about the interactional aspects of such dyadic assessment situations that might contribute to the ways in which children respond to the test questions. Aims To examine the interactional factors contributing to the performance of two children in the Sally–Anne test. To identify the interactional practices used by the tester administering the task and to describe how interactional features can pose challenges in the critical belief and reality questions for both the tester and the testee. Methods & Procedures The Sally–Anne test was carried out as part of a project examining children's interactions in a technology-enhanced environment. The present study uses video recordings of two children with communication disorders (one with a current diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder [ASD]) and an adult tester. We draw on a multimodal approach to conversation analysis (CA) to examine the sequential organization of the test questions and answers. Outcomes & Results The children drew on diverse resources when producing responses to the test questions: responding verbally, pointing or manually handling objects. The tester treated these responses differently depending on how they were produced. When the child pointed at an object and verbally indicated their response, the tester moved on to the next question apparently accepting the child's answer. When the child manually handled an object or produced a quiet verbal response, the tester repeated the question indicating that the child's actions did not constitute an adequate response to a test question. In response to this, both children modified or changed their previous responses. Through monitoring each other, the tester and the child produced actions highly responsive to the features of each other's conduct, which underpinned the conduct of the test itself. Conclusions & Implications Children's responses in the test might not be solely indicative of socio-cognitive capacities but also show orientation to interactional nuances. The study proposes that children can demonstrate diverse ways of responding to questions, yet testers may treat these as test-irrelevant behaviours if they do not correspond to the scoring criteria. A video-based CA study can broaden our understanding of children's pragmatic competencies in responsiveness that may not always embody an expected form. This can have implications for the development of future assessment tasks and revision of existing scoring practices.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are vulnerable to interactional trouble: difficulties in speaking, hearing and understanding. Prior conversation analytic (CA) work has examined how interactional trouble gets repaired mostly in verbal interactions among neurotypical speakers. Non-CA examinations have mainly been concerned with how children with ASD respond to others’ requests for clarification. Little is known about how children with ASD might manage and initiate solving interactional difficulties. Drawing on CA, this study reports on a sample of approximately 46 hours of video involving school-aged children with ASD and their adult co-participants. The analysis shows that children use both verbal and nonverbal resources to initiate the management of apparent trouble. However, the children are occasionally unable to effectively communicate the particular source of difficulty to the co-participants. The study suggests the co-participants’ active and sensitive facilitation as a resource for building mutual understanding.

The world is rapidly changing, and within the context of teacher education, this generates questions regarding what student teachers will need in their future profession, and how teacher educators can provide this. Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is also reported to be rising worldwide and is currently estimated to be 1 in 100 (Autism Europe, 2016). Student teachers are therefore likely to encounter pupils with ASD during their practical placements, and later as qualified professionals in institutions which increasingly follow the principle of‘inclusive education’. Thus, teacher education needs to prepare student teachers appropriately to enable them to teach children with ASD successfully in an inclusive classroom. Studies have shown that people express more negative attitudes toward ASD than some other disabilities (e.g. physical impairment or learning disabilities; Huskin, Reiser-Robbins,& Kwon,2018), which makes it crucial to understand how to facilitate positive attitudes toward ASD in particular. However, there is a dearth of research on student teachers’ attitudes toward ASD (Barned, Flanagan Knapp,& Neuharth-Pritchett,2011). Previous research, such as that undertaken by Caplan,Feldman, Eisenhower, and Blacher (2016) also found that teacher attitudes are important factors in determining whether teachers include pupils with ASD. Such studies were therefore considered supportive of the purpose for this research study.

This article presents the results of a review of research on children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and the use of technology. The review included 255 peer-reviewed research articles published between 2000 and 2010, archived in the ACM, IEEE, EBSCO, and ERIC databases. Content analysis was a method for analyzing articles. The results of the review indicated a clear growth in the number of research articles published during the last decade that addressed the issue of technologies for children with autism. Natural settings and field experiments were a typical methodology of the research, which reflected a strong link between academia and the field. On the other hand, the development of technologies took place separately from the user and children with ASD who participated in research activities in the latter stages of research and development. The results also indicated a strong research focus on the identification and provision of solutions to the problems typically related to ASD. Since the review only considered research focusing on problems related to ASD, future research should focus on the emergence of the capabilities and strengths of children with these disorders.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been found to have impaired joint attention (JA), which is considered key for learning social communication. This study reviewed the JA literature from the past decade to explore the generality of the deficit and looked at the JA assessment methods to see whether children's interests and preferences that may impact the results had been taken into account. While this review found evidence of impaired JA, it also found evidence of intact JA skills at the individual and group levels, indicating a non-uniform impairment of JA. A largely homogeneous assessment methodology within the published research was discovered, and no study reported using children's interests to create the assessment situation. The finding of JA skill variation between and within groups and individuals suggests that JA is within the scope of the learning capabilities of individuals with ASD. Due to the JA skill variation, we suggest that reporting individual data among group data to be...

This paper presents the results of a study on the communication of four children with autis m in a learning environment with multiple technologies. The main focus of the study was on the amount and forms of the children's expressions produced by voice while working at three technology-based workstations: building with bricks, symbol matching, and storytelling. The results indicate that the number of the children's vocal expressions was high, they used multiple ways in communicating despite challenges in language development, and each child had a different kind of communication profile. The results of the study are considered in respect to the variety of the communication and interaction of children with autism, and the aspects to be taken into account in a technology-enhanced learning environment to support the communication of children with autism.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the results of children's and teacher's experiences and feedback on DIY push-button workshops. The implementation of the workshops was based on the ideas of participatory design. An objective of the workshop was to make a working biased membrane switch from cheap and easily modifiable common materials. Participants of the pilot workshop were 11 children with special needs. The participants of the actual workshop were 69 children and 6 teachers. The data were collected by using videotaping, observations, and questionnaires. The results indicate that children can and like to participate in design and manufacturing of technology if they have an opportunity to do so. In addition the design of the push-buttons varied a great deal and the children's creativity in design of technology could be utilized more for making more adaptable and user-friendly technology. A special attention should be placed on the working arrangements, materials used, and guidance given to children when designing and manufacturing push-buttons with children with special needs. From the teacher's point of view making a push-button at school after the workshop would be very easy, interesting and likely since the materials were so easy to get.

Nurse teacherhood is composed of many factors. It includes nurse teachers’ tasks and different multidimensional roles and also nurse teachers’ individual experiences of being a nurse teacher. Nurse teachers’ experiences of nurse teacherhood depend on the meanings they give to the different factors. In other words, there are not only one but also several interpretations of what nurse teacherhood is. These interpretations affect what is important for each nurse teacher in their own nurse teacherhood and how satisfied they are with their profession. This paper is part of a larger study examining how Finnish nurse teachers experience their nurse teacherhood in polytechnics. The purpose of this paper was to describe nurse teacherhood during the years 2003 and 2004, when polytechnics and thus also nurse education were actively being developed in Finland. Nurse teachers ( N = 34) were interviewed and the data were analysed using the grounded theory method. The categories describing nurse teacherhood were: process of change in the organisation, operating culture of the health care working community, professional self-esteem, focus of competence, relationship with students, the future in one’s profession and requirements for staying in the profession. The core category was commitment to nurse teacherhood. Nurse teachers’ individual experiences of the significance of the categories describing teacherhood were reflected by their level of commitment to teacherhood. Nurse teachers, whose commitment to nurse teacherhood was weak, were especially unsatisfied with changes related to their teacherhood. Nurse teachers’ conceptions of their future as nurse teachers were significant in terms of the direction in which they were developing their own teacherhood. Some nurse teachers who were weakly committed to nurse teacherhood considered it unlikely that they would continue in the profession in the future.

This paper introduces four principles for the establishment of a technology-enhanced learning environment with and for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and presents results on how the principles were actualized in relation to children’s actions in the environment. The study was conducted as action research premised on the children’s active roles as participants and developers, the empowerment of children’s strengths and creativity, and the modifiability and transformability of technology solutions. The learning environment consisted of four workstations: symbol matching, LEGO® building, storytelling, and Kinect playing. According to the results, the strength-based approach and versatile technology solutions engaged children with ASD as active participants and creative actors. This engagement is crucial for creating new possibilities for the children’s education and everyday lives.