Pre-school teachers’ perceptions of challenging behaviours of students with autism spectrum disorder within inclusive settings
ISSN: 2056-3868
Article publication date: 16 July 2020
Issue publication date: 16 July 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have challenging behaviours that can create significant teaching challenges in group settings such as in mainstream pre-school inclusive settings. This study aims to identify and understand, from the perspectives of mainstream pre-school teachers in Singapore, the type of common challenging behaviours observed in pre-schoolers (mean age = 4.5 years, SD = 1.1, range = 3-6) with ASD.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants consisted of 62 teachers (mean age = 35.8 years; SD = 10.8) teaching in mainstream pre-school centres located in Singapore completed an open-ended survey. Twelve codes were generated and served as guidelines for coding the qualitative data. Codes with similar themes were then grouped to form four construct categories: social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours, attention and learning and others.
Findings
Results indicated that difficulty with change/transition and social/peer interaction were the most concerning issues across all settings, whereas “lesson time” and “circle time” were the two most common activities/settings in which the concerns were reported by teachers.
Originality/value
Findings from this paper may add to the limited research looking at the challenging behaviours exhibited by children with ASD in mainstream pre-school settings in Singapore. Understanding the type of challenging behaviours presented in pre-schoolers with ASD and the activities/settings in which these behaviours occur may help the teachers to link the difficulties to specific interventions to further support their inclusion in a mainstream pre-school setting.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Office of Educational Research, National Institute of Education (Singapore) under SUG 10/17 NYH. Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the National Institute of Education. The author would like to thank all the teachers who completed the survey. The author acknowledged the contribution of Hui-Min Lee, research assistant in this study.
Citation
Nah, Y.-H. (2020), "Pre-school teachers’ perceptions of challenging behaviours of students with autism spectrum disorder within inclusive settings", Advances in Autism, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 205-214. https://doi.org/10.1108/AIA-05-2019-0013
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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