Transitioning primary school students with Autism Spectrum Disorder from a special education setting to a mainstream classroom: successes and difficulties

ABSTRACT

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are increasingly being educated in mainstream classroom environments. Commonly students commence their education in a segregated setting, transitioning to mainstream education after a process of skills development. For each student, transition is a unique and complex process. In NSW Australia, Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect) offers a satellite classroom placement, in which students are provided with specialised education with the goal of future transition supported by the Aspect transition programme. This article examines the successes and difficulties experienced by three primary school students who transitioned from an Aspect satellite classroom to a mainstream classroom environment during primary school. Utilising Rogoff’s sociocultural framework, it analyses the transition process from the perspective of personal, interpersonal, institutional and cross-institutional contexts. Results identified several factors that facilitated successful transition, including careful pre-transition preparation, adequate cross-institutional communication, and the adoption of appropriate strategies in the receiving school. However, it was acknowledged that there were difficulties which students encountered at all levels of their context. This research adds to the scarce research literature on factors influencing transition to a mainstream setting for students with ASD.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• inclusive education
• primary education
• transition
• case studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Tara Martin has B of Primary Education (Hons) from the University of Wollongong. She is currently teaching full time at a primary school in Illawarra, NSW, Australia. This research is based on her Honours thesis which was supervised by the other members of the authors’ team.

Dr Roselyn Dixon is a Senior Lecturer in Inclusive and Special Education at the School of Education, University of Wollongong, where she is the Academic Program Director of Inclusive and Special Education. She has been a special education teacher and a research academic involved with Inclusive Education for over 25 years. She has published in the fields of social skills and behavioural interventions for people with a range of disabilities including students with Oppositional Defiance Disorders and Autism Spectrum Disorders. More recently she has been actively involved in examining the relationship between digital technologies and pedagogy in special education and inclusive classrooms for students with Autims Spectrum Disorders.

Dr Irina Verenikina is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong. She holds a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Russian Academy of Education and a Full Member of the Australian Psychological Society. Irina’s research interests relate to the sociocultural contexts of effective use of digital technologies in education. Irina’s research interests relate to the application of Sociocultural Psychology and Activity Theory to the study of the effective use of digital technologies in teaching and learning in various educational contexts such as special education, early childhood education, literacy and higher education.

Dr Debra Costley is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Nottingham. She has an international reputation in the field of autism across the lifespan, with a particular focus on education. She has over thirty years of experience in education, particularly special education, in the UK, Australia and the USA. She has worked in special schools, further and higher education in Australia and the UK and was National Director, Aspect Practice for Autism Spectrum Australia. Dr Costley is currently establishing links for new projects in the UK, which will focus on special education, with a particular interest in autism in education.