A Model of Practice for supporting the teaching of students on the autism spectrum when they start school

Full Text
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School Educ & Professional St
Arts, Education and Law
Australians on the autism spectrum experience poorer educational outcomes than their non-autistic peers, highlighting the ongoing area of need that is the effective teaching of this student cohort. In addition, Australian teachers report requiring greater knowledge and expertise to include and educate students on the spectrum effectively. These reports are symptomatic of the wide and ongoing research-to-practice gap in autism and education. Bridging this gap requires existing knowledge to be tailored and contextually specific products and/or tools to be created that translate this knowledge in ways that can easily be learnt and applied by classroom teachers. The present study aimed to develop a tool – the Early Years Model of Practice (EY-MoP) – that translated knowledge regarding foundational educational practices for teaching students on the spectrum by providing access to essential knowledge and supporting decision-making for mainstream early years teachers. The methodological approach taken, Educational Design Research, is characterised by the cyclical development of a practical solution to a problem of practice accompanied by the generation of usable knowledge. As a result, this study comprised two stages and encompassed the development of successive EY-MoP prototypes. Stage 1 consisted of the development of a complete prototype of the EY-MoP. A structured identify-sort-refine process was used to generate a working set of 31 foundational practices (Prototype 1) drawn from the fields of autism, early childhood special education, and early childhood education. Five subject-matter experts deemed the practices to have content validity. The working set of 31 practices was refined in accordance with the experts’ feedback resulting in the construction of Prototype 2, which comprised 32 practices. Prototype 2 was evaluated via a survey of 129 early years teachers from Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. Results showed that more than 80% of teachers agreed that a