Knowledge and Attitudes of Special Education Teachers Towards the Inclusion of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACT

Despite many nations having policies that mandate inclusive education for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the levels of implementation vary. In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of the grassroots’ interpretation of inclusive education for students with ASD in order to identify local contextual barriers and enablers of inclusion. In line with this research agenda, a study was conducted with 87 special education teachers in Penang, Malaysia to identify factors integral to their attitudes towards inclusive education for students with ASD. The analysis, which considered demographic factors, knowledge of ASD and societal attitudes, pointed to societal attitudes as a strong predictor of the special education teachers’ perceptions towards inclusive education for students with ASD. Given the findings, the ways to promote inclusive education for students with ASD in Malaysia and other developing nations alike were discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism spectrum disorder
• inclusion
• mainstream education
• Malaysia
• social stigma
• special education
• teacher attitude
• teacher knowledge

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme [203/PGURU/6711443] by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education and Universiti Sains Malaysia.