Including Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in mainstream Early Childhood Settings: What teachers do.

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2082509/v1

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Research Article

Including Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in mainstream Early Childhood Settings: What teachers do.

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2082509/v1

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a label given to a neurological condition that causes people to act and think differently from neurotypical people. While there are New Zealand/Aotearoa studies reporting on children with ASD in more formal educational, compulsory settings, little is known about including children with ASD in mainstream early childhood settings. In this article the research focuses on investigating children with ASD who are included within three mainstream early childhood settings within one region of New Zealand/ Aotearoa, using case study methodology. The data collected included observations of teachers interacting with the child with ASD, semi-structured interviews with the key teacher, centre manager and the family/whānau of the child as well as collecting documents supporting the child within the centre. The findings indicate that all three ECE settings mostly included the child, while addressing some of their learning needs. However, it also highlighted the need for all teachers to have professional development when teaching children with ASD.

Special Education

Autism Spectrum Disorder

inclusion

early childhood education

teachers

New Zealand/Aotearoa

The New Zealand Early Childhood Curriculum Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum(Ministry of Education, 2017) is an internationally recognised early childhood curriculum (Fleer 2017). This curriculum asks teachers to take a socio-cultural stance which also includes an anti-bias approach (Kelly-Ware, 2019) to developing a curriculum that is unique to their centre and community. Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) was written to include all children, even those who may need additional learning support. It also is designed to cater for children with differences in “gender and ethnicity, diversity of ability and learning needs, family structure and values, socio-economic status and religion” (Ministry of Education, 2017, p.14). Over 50% of the curriculum covers te ao Māori (the Māori World) and requires all teachers to uphold te reo me ona tikanga (Māori language and correct proceedures). All the headings in Te Whāriki have both English and te reo headings, while concepts such as Manaakitanga are included in the weave (te whāriki) of the cover, while Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) forms the underlying foundation of this curriculum.

While there are New Zealand/Aotearoa studies reporting on children with ASD in more formal school settings (such as primary and secondary schools), less is known about children in ECE settings. Ministry of Health and Education (2016) also recognises the lack of New Zealand research into ASD in ECE settings and acknowledges the reliance on international studies to inform ‘best practice’.

The New Zealand / Aotearoa ECE sector is diverse in structure. It has both profit and not for profit centres. The Ministry of Education (MOE) does bulk fund all ECE centres regardless and provides up to 20 hours of free ECE education for all children. However if families/whānau want to send their children for more than 20 hours then they are charged a fee. An interesting point to note is centres can be made up of both trained and untrained staff. While MOE has a policy and funding responsibility it also mandates curriculum and educational priorities. MOE. While the main focus of the Special Education arm of the MOE is on compulsory sector support/funding they also employ speech language therapists (SLT), early intervention teachers (EIT) and education support workers (ESW). To add to the confusion these also offered contractually by private bodies e.g specialty schools.

Val Podmore was contracted by the MOE to develop resources to support Te Whāriki and in 2006 published her book on Observations (Podmore, 2006). In this book she has taken the strands (the five areas of early learning and development) within Te Whāriki and rewritten them into five questions based on a child’s perspective. These are listed in Table One.

Table One: The child’s questions

Strand of Te Whāriki	Full Question	Simplified Question
Belonging	Do you appreciate and understand my interests and abilities and those of my family	Do you know me?
Well-being	Do you meet my daily needs with care and sensitive consideration?	Can I trust you?
Exploration	Do you engage my mind, offer challenges and extend my world?	Do you let me fly?
Communication	Do you invite me to communicate and respond to my own particular efforts?	Do you hear me?
Contribution	Do you encourage and facilitate my endeavours to be part of the wider group?	Is this place fair for us?
(Podmore, 2006, p.71)

By using the above links where the strands are linked with the child’s questions teachers can see where inclusive education may be more problematic especially when presented with a child who is non-verbal and has difficulty interacting in any social situation as the neurological differences children with ASD experience affect all five of the strands from Te Whāriki. (Ministry of Education, 2017)

Critical theory (Ministry of Education, n.d.c) reminds ECE teachers that with the growing diversity in the ECE population they need to view each child through different lenses in order to address social injustices such as marginalisation.

ASD is a label given to a neurological condition that causes people to act and think very differently from neurotypical people (Grandin, 2011; Ministry of Health and Education, 2016; Schafer-Whitby, Lyons, & Baxter, 2015). People diagnosed with ASD have the following two characteristics (to a greater or lesser degree):

Issues with social communication and/or social reciprocity
Exhibit restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Ministry of Health & Education, 2016)

These characteristics impact on the child diagnosed with ASD within the New Zealand /Aotearoa early childhood education (ECE) settings. Not being able to speak or work with other children, and unusual perseverative behaviours (such as flapping, head banging or humming) all cause disruption for teachers and other children. This can lead to the child being marginalised within an ECE setting. Larkey (n.d.) explains: “To know someone with ASD is not to know ASD”. To successfully include these children, teachers must be prepared to learn about each child as an individual in order - a fundamental right of all children in New Zealand/Aotearoa.

Providing all children with the access and participation to early learning settings can be enhanced through involving families/whānau Shafer-Whitby et.al. (2015) and Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) explain. Part of a teacher’s role is to “engage in dialogue with families, whānau and communities to understand their [priority] for curriculum and learning” ( (Ministry of Education, 2017, p.59), meaning teachers need to develop genuine, positive, collaborative relationships with all families/whānau regardless of the child’s abilities and this includes those families/whānau whose child has diverse needs In New Zealand extra funding and educational support is not provided without some evidence of ’disability’. Only then can additional education assistance be sought.

There is a difference between theory and experiences (Macartney & Morton, 2013) It is important it is for all the staff to have positive attitudes towards the child within the families/whānau and their cultures (Ministry of Education, 2017).

Research

A research project was conducted over a two year period (2020–2021), focused on how teachers in ECE settings include children with provisionally diagnosed ASD. Was the definiton of gender and ethnicity, diversity of ability and learning needs, family structure and values, socio-economic status and religion” (MOE 2017, p.14) sufficient.

Methodology

The following research question was developed: How do teachers in mainstream early childhood settings include children with ASD? Case study methodology was used to collect information on the research question (Mukherji & Albon, 2018).

Three early childhood mainstream ECE settings within one region in New Zealand agreed to be part of the research project, The children in each of the ECE settings had been provisionally diagnosed with ASD by the local child development clinic experts. All participants (the Head Teachers/Managers, key teachers and families/whānau) completed consent forms signed and the data collection occurred between the months of August 2020 through to April 2021.

The data collected included:

Three narrative observations of the child and teacher interaction on different days at different times.
Semi-structured interviews of the key teachers (KTs), Head Teachers/Managers and the families/whānau. The interviews were generic and then taylored to fit each child’s unique ASD characteristics as seen in at least one observation.
Documentation pertaining to the child with ASD including policies on inclusion, reports on the child, individual learning plans, emails and learning stories.
The raw data was collected and analysed using colour coding, highlighting ASD characteristics of the children and how the key teachers and other children included them in various ways throughout the day.

The data was analysied and then written up for each centre as a case study, before collating all the information into one document. This document included a general summary of each case study, followed by a table of what the observations showed, what the teachers did and what they said.

This section provides a description of each case study, followed by an explanation of four key findings derived from the data: the team approach, professional learning and development (PLD), the family/whanau perspectives, and communication and socialisation. All four findings show how teachers walk (or don’t walk) the talk and their knowledge of inclusion (or exclusion) for the children with ASD.

Case study description.

Case Study A attended an ECE setting (Kindergarten) in a small town. The child was 4 years old and lived with her solo mother. This child attended the ECE setting four days a week from 9:30am to 2:30pm. Ministry of Education funded an ESW for one hour per day.
Case Study B attended an ECE setting in a larger town. Child B was 2 ½ years old and lived with his family and had four older siblings. This child attended the ECE setting full-time (5 days a week, between 9:30pm and 4pm) and was allocated MOE TA time for the 3 hours per day.
Case Study C attended an ECE setting in a city. Child C was a 4 year old child who lived with his solo mother and an older sister. This child attended the ECE setting 3 days a week, between 9am and 1pm. An ESW was MOE funded for one hour a day when he was at the ECE setting.

Team approach

The collaborative team approach showed consistency across all three ECE settings, although there was a variation in time, place and record keeping.

Centre A’s key teachers explained transitions and meetings included the child’s mother, the MOE early intervention teacher (who led the meeting) and the Education Support Worker (ESW). The inclusion of the MOE support person and the ESW was negotiated before Child A started. No Individual Educational Plan (IEP) documents were apparent, but minutes are taken and distributed to all. KT1 explained they always started by asking Child A’s mother how everything was at home and any new challenges she might be having. The KT’s found the mother to be honest, knowing her child’s behaviours intimately. They also texted her mother during the day as she liked to be informed of Child A’s day, and ‘caught up’ with her main KT when she collected Child A.

Centre B’s key teacher stated they had both formal meetings once a month and informal casual conversations daily at pick up and drop off. At formal meetings the MOE early intervention teacher (EIT) or the KT took notes. The KT would then feedback at a staff meeting. She considered the team to comprise of all the teachers, the teaching assistant (TA), the family/whānau, the ESW and the EIT.

Every six months Centre C’s KT met with Child C’s mother and the occupational therapist (OT) (from the local specialised centre, who provided the ESW). The team met at the specialised centre Child C attended every Wednesday where the existing three IDP goals were reviewed and amended or renewed. The KT reported back on the goals at the staff meeting and all staff helped Child C with his goals.

Professional Learning and Development

The amount of PLD the teachers had attended on ASD was wide-ranging and varied.

In Centre A, KT1 had not completed any PLD on ASD but was currently attending an MOE funded Incredible Years Autism Programme for Teachers where she chose Child A as her focus child. “I feel like I am learning things about [Child A] that I probably wouldn’t have done before, because I am focussing on her”. KT2 had done a lot of PLD due to having children of her own with ASD, however the PLD mainly focused on the needs/strengths/wishes/interests of her own children. KT2 had also done short courses and read widely. She acknowledged that not all PLD was useful as it did not always pertain to the child with ASD they were teaching.

In Centre B the KT had no PLD on ASD but was planning on attending two later in the year—the Incredible Years Autism programme and a workshop run by Autism New Zealand.

Centre C’s KT had completed an online course on special needs a couple of years ago, which she explained introduced ASD in a general way.

Family/Whānau perspectives

Initially, ASD was unknown to all three families/whānau and they had little understanding around why their child was so different and not developing in the usual way. One mother thought it was because her child had an “old soul”, while another thought it was because he was a “chunky baby”, and another thought “he was just being naughty”. All three required outside agencies to help them understand why their child behaved the way they did.

Transition into the ECE settings differed for each case. One family looked at three or four ECE settings before deciding on one that suited her child and slowly eased her child in over a month. Another sent their child to the centre their other children had attended— just dropping him off with his brother, while the third mother was walking by with her child who had “a little fascination for it” and enrolled him into that centre. All explained that the ECE settings the children attended were inclusive of and cared for their child. Inclusion for these families meant their children were accepted by (most) teachers (but not always by the other children) and allowed to engage freely in activities that interested them, with spontaneous teachable moments identified by an adult with them, occuring during the day.

All three families/whānau appreciated being included in the planning meetings for their child and having their points of view listened to. They also liked the daily check-ins, so they knew what was happening for their child in the centre during the day.

PLD for the three families/whānau did vary. Living in a small town, away from key services, one family could not get to any courses, but hoped to join a local support group. She had relied on readings and the internet to learn about ASD. A second family/whānau only started attending workshops on ASD once they found out their child’s ASD provisionally diagnosis. The third mother could not attend any PLD unless it was held at the special centre when she attended with her child on Wednesday mornings. A key issue here was that two of the three families/whānau were solo parents and did not have people to look after their child while attending courses or workshops. There was no interaction with the fathers or grandparents as both solo parents did not trust them to look after their child. This was despite one family being tangata whenua (Māori), were the concept of mana whenua (belonging) was deemed not so important for this parent.

All three families/whānau spoke of the strengths of their child while acknowledging their learning styles. The strengths included being observant and having very good climbing skills. The needs each of the three families/whānau mentioned included specific diets and the foods they would eat had a narrow range due to colour and texture, sensory issues, socialisation concerns and all three were ‘runners’ (meaning if given the chance they would quickly and unpredictably move off somewhere).

Communication and socialisation

Child A did not verbally communication with anyone (i.e., other children or adults) and had a flat effect meaning she showed no emotion. She would take the teachers hands to show them what she wanted meaning the teachers would have to guess what she wanted. At the time of the research Child A had echolalia and the teachers thought she was ‘developing her own language’. She ignored what other children were doing so the KTs invited her to join in. They recognised that Child A was more inclined to be part of a small group if there was music. However, she was by herself most of the time.

Child B was also non-verbal. To make his point he made’ mmmm’, ‘hmmm’ and grizzly sounds. He could be quite loud when he was not getting what he wanted. This was part of developing his communication skills and showed he was beginning to show expressive language. The teachers interpreted this as ‘more’, or ‘I want’ or ‘I need’. Sometimes he would take the TA or a teacher by the hand to show them what he wanted. The TA or teacher would then say the appropriate sentence to feed his receptive language. He also showed more understanding of what the adults around him were wanting him to do (i.e., his receptive language was more developed than his expressive language). Child B moved away from other children or stopped if they were in the way. The teachers allowed him to do this. The TA explained Child B was sensitive to noise, so she had to encourage him to stay near the other children by (e.g., blowing bubbles). This was difficult for Child B as other children pushed him out of the way in their excitement.

Child C was responding to his own name and all the teachers were speaking to him in full sentences. However, he did have difficulty controlling his emotions and if he had conflict with another child, he would go and tell a trusted teacher. He was beginning to work on uttering more complex sentences at the conclusion of the research.

Over the three observations Child C was involved in numerous social incidents. Three are recorded below as examples.

Pushed past a teacher. She spoke to him, while the ESW reminded him to use his manners.
Ran around the play area and accidently hurt a child. A teacher stood Child C next to her. She explained to him that he had hurt the other child and insisted he had to apologise, which he could not do.
Sat and played with blocks alongside 3 other children. He flapped with excitement and explained what he was doing in full 3-part sentences. The teacher watched him but did not involve herself.

This section revisits the research question in light of the findings on how the teachers in their mainstream early childhood settings included children with ASD. These are reported under following sub-headings: ASD Characteristics, Inclusion, Links to Te Whāriki, Support for Teachers and Family/Whānau support. This is followed by Barriers and Tensions found within the research.

ASD Characteristics

Macartney and Morton (2013) and Ministry of Education (2017) suggest teachers should celebrate differences in diversity and engagement with children who have diverse needs (such as ASD) in the pursuit of an inclusive education. The official tool for diagnosing various mental health conditions is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) is used in New Zealand/Aotearoa and internationally. It lists the unique characteristics for an ASD diagnosis for experts to use (i.e., social communication and/or social reciprocity, and restrictive, repetitive patterns of behaviour). The case study children displayed these characteristics and appeared to be accepted in their early learning ECE settings, with allowances for their unique ways of being and doing made by most teaching staff and their head teachers/managers. This is consistent with the ASD Guidelines (Ministry of Health and Education, 2016), which explain young children benefit from child-led services where the teachers accept the ASD diagnosis and follow the child, interacting with them for the benefit of their learning. It is also consistent with the curriculum strand of belonging (Ministry of Education, 2017

Unfortuately, not all teachers in the case study ECE settings accepted the ASD diagnosis and which caused tensions between the families/whānau and those teachers. This, according to Johora, Fleer and Hammer (2021) amplifies the issues for children with ASD and their families/whānau. More on this tension is written under Barriers and Tensions.

Inclusion

Inclusion should be the norm within ECE settings and this is consistent with all five strands within Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017). Vincent-Snow (2018) and McAnelly and Gaffney (2019) explain that teachers need to work within the rights discourse and acknowledge the ‘disability’ in order to include a child.

It was apparent the three ECE settings and their teachers were beginning to be inclusive of children with ASD, with all three ECE settings acknowledging the diagnosis of each child. They had implemented some strategies, however more strategies were needed to ensure that each child reached their potential before transitioning into primary school.

While not all ECE settings had inclusive policies, this did not impact on the teachers’ thinking on inclusion, as those teachers in ECE settings without policies did refer to Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) and their organisation policies as a guide for including all children.

Links to Te Whāriki

Table 2 gives a brief overview on how the ECE settings have made links for the child with ASD within Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) strands. The gray squares indicates strands that were not being met.

**Table Two: Child’s links to each Strand.**
Strand of Te Whāriki	ECE Setting 1	ECE Setting 2	ECE Setting 3
Belonging	The teachers actively ensured that Child A had a sense of belonging by allowing her to walk her set path both inside and outside the centre environment .	The teachers acknowledged that Child B had a sense of belonging as his siblings had been to the ECE. One of his brothers was also attending.	Child C had chosen his ECE setting and showed this was where he belonged. Most of the teachers accepted his different way of being and doing.
Well-being	This was problematic as non-verbal Child A could not explain her feelings or any injuries.	Child C would use his three verbalisations to complain, however the teachers needed to interpret this..	Child C would go to a helpful teacher to complain if someone was doing something wrong. He showed when he was happy by stimming??. No teachers were observed acknowledging this.
Exploration	Child A was curious teachers allowed her to walk her own paths. They watched carefully to ensure she remained within the grounds.	Child B showed a knowledge of his environment and the teachers allowed him to follow his own walking path.	Child C knew his environment well, however he did show difficulties in sharing it with other children.
Communication	Child A could not speak and the teachers needed to learn her non-verbal signals and interpret her meanings.	Child B could not speak and explain himself. Teachers had to interpret his noises or his non-verbal signals.	While Child C was speaking in sentences, he did find it difficult following instructions that came at him quickly. His perception was very either / or and found it difficult to compromised.
Contribution	The teachers found it very difficult to get Child A to contribute due to socialisation and communication issues.	The teachers found it very difficult to get Child B to contribute due to socialisation and communication issues.	The teachers did try to include him, however he still appeared to be learning independently of the other children.
(Ministry of Education, 2017)

In all three cases the children were developing the strand of belonging, however the other strands were not being met. It is important that all strands are learning priorities for all children where teachers are guided by the goals attached to each strand.. This links specifically into support for teachers who need to include children with ASD.

Support for teachers

Teachers do need support to teach young children with ASD (Ministry of Health and Education, 2016; Macartney & Morton, 2013) and in the three ECE settings they indicated more information and resourcing were needed. This included PLD (Ministry of Education, 2019) or expertise help such as that provided from the Ministry of Education (Ministry of Education, n.d.a) or other PDL contractors.

While all three ECE settings did receive additional support accessed through Ministry of Education in the form of an Early Intervention Teacher (EIT) and Education Support Worker (ESW), but the teachers often mentioned it was not enough[1]. This is consistent with the findings from the Education Review Office (Education Review Office, 2016) who identified that “some teachers did not appear to have the pedagogical knowledge to extend children’s learning through any planned or spontaneous teacher interaction” (p. 19), despite having qualifications in ECE. The ECE settings and families/whānau found the additional support valuable and hoped it would carry over when transitioning to school. The IEPs and engagement with MOE would support the transition to primary school.

Building teacher confidence and capability through ongoing PLD is important for inclusion (Ministry of Education, 2017). To this end only two KTs had been on PLD training on ASD. The other KTs were either still attending an ASD workshop and/or course or had enrolled to complete at least one within six months of the data collection stage.

Family/Whānau support

Barton, Lawrence and Duerloo (2012) and McAnelly and Gaffney (2016) advocate that genuine collaboration between all involved, including the families/whānau increased the probability of successful inclusive outcomes. This is also consistent with the intent of Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) who write in Principle 3 that the “wider world of family [...] is an integral part of the early childhood curriculum” (p. 20).

Having team meetings where the families/whānau, key teachers, EIT/ESW and others deemed relevant (to the child’s developmental and learning needs), met and developed an IEP ensured a multi-modal approach to cover all aspects of the child’s life were connected and work on similtaneously. In all cases, families/whānau should be asked to speak first and express their ideas on what needed to be worked on. In this way the learning is adapted to suit the current needs of the child (Ministry of Education, 2017; Ministry of Health and Education, 2016). However with the lack of documentation found to support this I was reliant on the words of the participants.

[1] It is interesting to read in the Learning Support Action Plan (Ministry of Education, 2019) that the early childhood sector was excluded by not being invited to give their point of view.

This research identified some key barriers and tensions within each case. The most obvious barrier was that none of the three ECE settings used ASD specific strategies to include the children. In my feedback to the ECE settings various strategies were recommended to assist them to include the each child with ASD. Some of these were general and could be applied to all children (i.e. saying their name first, using when/then terminology and giving time warnings) (Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2018). More specific strategies for each child with ASD were also suggested (i.e. the use of visual cards, social stories and ensuring enough time is given before repeating the instruction verbatum) (Derris & DiCarlo, 2013; Larkey, n.d).

A tension that arose was when some of the teachers did not believe the child had ASD, despite being trained ECE teachers. It is imperative that all teachers accept the diagnosis and are upskilled in what this means for their teaching and the child’s learning (Education Review Office, 2016; Ministry of Education, 2019). Fortunately, one family/whānau member had the courage and knowledge to speak out when a teacher told her that her child was just being ‘naughty’ by assertively stating, “Well I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you were a psychologist. I wasn’t aware that that was your field of work”.

Another barrier identified was that all three families/whānau initially did not know their child was on the spectrum (i.e. having ASD). This is common as it is usually ECE settings or health professionals that recognise that something is ‘not quite right’ (Ministry of Education, 2017; Ministry of Health and Education, 2016) especially as professionals need to be cognisant of “genetic, developmental and environmental factors” (Ministry of Education, 2017, p. 61) relating to each child’s learning and development. Not knowing their child was on the spectrum is not unusual, but they were aware that something was not quite right when their baby started to show different developmental issues. In this research, the families/whānau did need health or education professionals to explain the differences and to provide a pathway for a diagnosis.

Finding an appropriate inclusive centre was another problem, especially for one family/whānau in this study. While Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) is an inclusive curriculum, it does not necessarily mean all ECE settings and/or teachers are suitable for children with ASD, for reasons of environment and belief systems. This was heard in the interview with Child A’s mum, where she spoke about trying three different ECE settings before finding the ‘right one’ that could ‘contain her child’. Even then it took a long time to transition Child A into the centre and she was very grateful that the teachers allowed her to do this.

Limitations of the study

It is acknowledged that this research does have limitations, for consideration by researchers doing further research on ASD within ECE include:

It was based on only three case studies within one region of New Zealand / Aotearoa. To be more robust the research also needs to be conducted in more regions across New Zealand / Aotearoa.
The semi-structured interviews could have included questions about teachers’ belief systems and any ASD teaching strategies specifically used with the child.
A focus group of all teachers in each centre should have been included to draw out their understandings on working with a child with ASD
More emphasis could have been placed on the child/teacher interactions when conducting the observations.

This research indicates that most teachers do include children with ASD in the ECE mainstream settings. All three ECE case studies allowed the children to pursue their own activities, which is an advantage for children with ASD, unlike the more formal schooling found in New Zealand primary and secondary schools. This is important as it allows for adaptability and flexibilty as illustrate by the fact the children with ASD were comfortable in their surroundings.

Furthermore, the research also shows that PLD for teachers on ASD is vital for the successful inclusion of each child with ASD as they are unique and those with ASD need interventions to be specific to that child’s unique ASD characteristics.

It is hoped that outcomes of this research may guide ECE settings and teachers into finding more specific strategies to ensure children with ASD are included more effectively within the learning and teaching programme.

This research was supported by Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand, who provided ethical approval and financial support to conduct this research and subsequent article. Dr Janis Carroll-Lynd (Academic Leader for Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand) was the supervisor who provided guidance and advice throughout.

The author is a staff member of Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand. She identified a need for this research in Aotearoa/ New Zealand, wrote the proposal, found the participants, collected and analysed the data and wrote the final report. She was support by her supervisor Dr. Janis Carroll-Lynd. The research had ethical consent approved by Te Rito Maioha Senior Academic Committee. Funds were obtained for research costs (i.e. transcription and travel) from Te Rito Maioha early childhood New Zealand’s contestable research and funding pool.

There are no other journals this article has been submitted to.

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Including Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in mainstream Early Childhood Settings: What teachers do.

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Abstract

Introduction

Research

Methodology

Methods

Findings

Team approach

Professional Learning and Development

Family/Whānau perspectives

Communication and socialisation

Discussion

ASD Characteristics

Inclusion

Links to Te Whāriki

Support for teachers

Family/Whānau support

Barriers And Tensions

Limitations of the study

Conclusion

Declarations

References

Status:

Version 1