Inside Education 418, Autism and Education - Research and Practice (29-5-21)

Presented and produced by Seán Delaney.

In this podcast I explore the topic of education and autism by speaking to a classroom teacher, Graham Manning from Cork, and a university researcher, Professor Steffie van der Steen from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Among the topics we discuss are:

• How Graham became coordinator of classes for autistic students in school
• The organisation with which Graham undertook training on helping students develop good sleeping habits.
• How Steffie became interested in researching autism and the education of students with autism in the Netherlands.
• The Salamanca Statement on special needs education:
• Graham’s class arrangements from a student’s perspective
• Different needs of autistic students from primary to secondary school
• Graham’s problem with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Inclusive Education in New Brunswick and that province's views on inclusion versus segregation
• Excellence in practice: visiting homes of students who apply for the special class and managing transitions from primary to secondary school and from secondary to third level.
• Graham referred to a quote widely attributed to Dr. Stephen Shore that “when you meet one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”
• Steffie’s research findings that are relevant for teachers: assessing young children on science concepts (Marble task and air pressure task); four categories of teachers’ needs in relation to teaching students with special needs: cooperation, academic tools, social aspects, reassurance for insecure newly qualified teachers; her hypothesis about the need to ask students both higher- and lower- order questions.
• Students learned from years of experience with students with autism and getting to know them.
• Lessons teachers can take from her experience of assessing young students with special education needs: variation in questions and hands-on tasks.
• Classroom interactions in Graham’s class for autistic students (Building relationships, subject planning, spending time outdoors, making meals together in the “home room,” creating a safe space)
• Steffie’s research (with her doctoral student, Lisette de Jonge-Hoekstra) on the relationship between children’s speech and their gestures when working on a task (including “gesture-speech mismatch)
• Steffie on animal-assisted therapy for students with autism
• Graham on why there are insufficient special classes in post-primary schools
• Steffie recommends: https://scholar.google.com/.
• Graham recommends The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida.