Concerns of parents and teachers of children with autism in elementary school

Abstract

Many consensus guidelines encourage parents and teachers to openly communicate about their concerns regarding their children. These guidelines attest to the importance of achieving consensus about what issues are most critical and how to address them. The purpose of this study was to examine whether parents and teachers (1) agree about their concerns for their children with autism and (2) when given the opportunity, whether they discussed these concerns. Participants were 39 parent–teacher dyads of children with autism in kindergarten-through-fifth grade autism support classrooms. Each parent and teacher was interviewed separately about their concerns and then observed together in a discussion about the child. Parents and teachers generally agreed about their primary and secondary concerns. When given an opportunity to communicate their concerns, 49% of the parent–teacher dyads discussed problems that neither reported as their primary concern, and 31% discussed problems that neither reported as their primary or secondary concern. These findings suggest that interventions should target parent–teacher communication, rather than agreement, to facilitate home–school collaboration.

School refusal behaviour: Are children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder at a higher risk?

“…These findings are in line with previous studies that report tension and challenging communication in schoolhome collaboration in students with ASD and in students with SRB in the general child and adolescent population (33,102,113,115,141). Furthermore, although more than 70% of parent-teacher dyads shared the same concerns regarding students with ASD, only 23% shared the concerns in meetings (114).…”

“…Close collaboration between parents and teachers is important for the students' academic, social and personal development and, furthermore, to ensure school attendance. However, school-home collaboration can suffer from tension and poor communication (27,111,(113)(114)(115). Students with ASD often have difficulties expressing their needs, interpreting occurrences, and passing on information between the two arenas.…”

Parent–teacher problem solving about concerns in children with autism spectrum disorder: The role of income and race

“…Percentages were computed for agreement between parents and teachers. We used agreement between parents and teachers on their primary or secondary concerns because G. Azad and Mandell () suggested that while parents and teachers agree on their top two concerns, there is very little agreement on just the primary concerns. For income, “<25 k” was used as the reference variable.…”

“…Despite these limitations, the findings from the current study have important implications about parent–teacher problem solving and the best way to encourage it in school‐based service delivery models. Prior studies have indicated that the quality and quantity of problem solving between parents and teachers of children with ASD is limited in schools (G. Azad & Mandell, ; G. F. Azad et al, ). The findings from the current study suggest that this is even less common among low‐income parents and parents interacting with White teachers.…”

“…It is possible that child characteristics per se may not be as important as parent and teacher agreement about those characteristics. G. Azad and Mandell () found that although parents and teachers of children with ASD usually agree about their concerns for the same child, they do not necessarily bring it up when presented with an opportunity to discuss their concerns. However, it is also possible that if parents and teachers agree about their concerns, they may work together more collaboratively to problem solve that concern.…”