Profiles of public and private autism-specific schools in Gauteng

Abstract

Background: Despite inclusive education (IE) policies and legislation being introduced in South Africa (SA), learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are still placed in autismspecific public and private schools. Limited data are available on who makes use of the two different types of schools. Results may provide information on the profiles and education of learners with ASD in Gauteng schools.Aim: A quantitative, cross-sectional, comparative research design was used to compare the profiles of autism-specific public with autism-specific private schools and learners in Gauteng Province.Setting: The research was conducted in two autism-specific public and two private schools. Methods: Two survey questionnaires were used to collect data from four principals of two autism-specific public and two autism-specific private schools and 150 caregivers of learners attending the participating schools.Results: Results showed that because of their size autism-specific public schools make a significant contribution to the education of learners with ASD in Gauteng, compared to autismspecific private schools. Autism-specific public schools offer more therapy services than the autism-specific private schools, despite lower fees than autism-specific private schools. Significantly more black learners attend autism-specific public schools than autism-specific private schools. Regardless of the differences in population groups across the participating schools, the mean age when caregivers became concerned about their child's development was similar across the two types of schools. Learners enrolled at the autism-specific private schools were diagnosed with ASD earlier than learners enrolled at the autism-specific public schools. Also, they commenced school earlier than the learners in the autism-specific public schools. Lastly, three of the four principals expressed a preference that learners with ASD be placed in autism-specific schools. Conclusion:The results highlight the need to raise awareness of ASD symptoms among parents with young children in all communities and to determine the barriers that hinder IE for learners with ASD in SA.

Autism Spectrum Disorder and Head Circumference in children under 5 years of age attending a public clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa

“…(2)Research exploring the demographics of an ASD population at public and private schools in the Gauteng Province of South Africa reported Black ethnicity as predominant (74.5%) with White (16.2%), mixed race (1.9%) and Indian (6.5%) constituting the remaining ethnicities. (13) Our study showed a similar demographic profile and closely represents the ethnicities present in South Africa. (22) There have been no racial or ethnic differences noted in other ASD prevalence studies.…”

“…(27) Symptom severity can predict prognosis with less severely affected individuals having a more favourable prognosis. (19) Assessment of severity can also assist in appropriate school placement (13) and the anticipation and management of possible comorbid conditions.…”

Challenges of Parental Role in Enhancing Academic Performance of Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Eswatini Mainstream Primary Schools

“…This finding confirms one from Numisi et al (2020) where parents expressed disappointment because they had set unrealistic expectations. Moreover, labelling head teachers as not considerate enough to source accommodative teaching aids corroborates with literature from Van der Linder et al (2019), whereby insufficiency of resources to enable curriculum modification through task-analysis restricted support that teachers rendered to help the learners with ASD to achieve reasonable educational outcomes. With such incompetence of the school as a meso-system of Bronfenbrenner's Bio-ecological Systems Theory (1979), the quality of education offered by the teachers to the learner with ASD during instruction may be tremendously compromised, hence, the foundation laid in class becomes too shallow for the parent to build on while trying to help the learner with studies at home.…”

Autism in the Western Cape province of South Africa: Rates, socio-demographics, disability and educational characteristics in one million school children

“…In a study that compared the differences between autism-specific government-funded and privately funded schools in the Gauteng province, Erasmus et al (2019) found that autism-specific government-funded schools were cheaper, offered more therapies and made a more significant contribution to the education of children with ASD. However, the private schools admitted children as young as 2.5 years (Erasmus et al, 2019). Private schools are generally more expensive and not accessible to the majority of the population of the Western Cape province.…”