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.