Earning Your Way into General Education: Perceptions about Autism Influence Classroom Placement

Abstract

The language used by teachers, school staff, and parents to talk about autistic students can send either positive or negative messages to other school staff, parents, and all students—with or without autism—about autistic students. Ultimately, these messages also extend to autistic people. Using qualitative focus group methods, we talked to parents, teachers, administrators, and other school staff to better understand how people speak about the inclusion of autistic students in general education classrooms in public schools. Overall, we found that many of our participants thought (1) autistic students need to earn their way into general education classrooms, unlike their peers without disabilities, (2) segregating students with disabilities away from their peers without disabilities is acceptable, and sometimes preferable, in school settings, and (3) there is power in inclusive education opportunities for students with and without disabilities in school settings. The findings from this study suggest that inclusive opportunities for autistic students were largely driven by stakeholder mindsets. These results should encourage school staff to think about and reflect on how they talk about autistic students in inclusive settings with the ultimate goal of creating more welcoming inclusive environments for autistic students.

Factors Affecting Autistic Students’ School Motivation

“…These preliminary findings on factors affecting autistic students' school motivation are significant, not only because they are based on the perspectives of autistic students, but also because they draw attention to the potential negative outcomes of over-looking school factors externally located from the student (i.e., the physical environment and social interactions) that impact autistic students' motivation, hence, school participation and success. While much research emphasizes a need for a greater professional understanding of autism [55], teacher preparation programs and professional development sessions, predominantly based on outsider perspectives, tend to perpetuate ableist biases and the use of pedagogical practices that hyper-focus on fixing traits internal to the autistic student, including behavioral-based interventions that attribute a lack of engagement to avoidance or attention-seeking behaviors. The risks associated with implementing support and strategies based on outsider perspectives are that they tend to be based on deficit views of ability [56] and are more likely to be abandoned or rejected by students [28], thus emphasizing the need for educators to engage in proactive and collaborative informationgathering discussions with autistic students to better understand their perspectives on the specific enablers and barriers affecting their motivation and engagement in learning and to promote a shared responsibility for finding positive solutions.…”