Inclusion versus Integration. Mainstreaming ASD.

1. Inclusion versus Integration. Mainstreaming ASD. Aga Kowalska University of the West of England Aga.Kowalska@uwe.ac.uk

2. Inclusion ‘vs’ Integration? • Inclusion (Loxley, 2001) • For the inclusion agenda, the problem is understood as an excluding social context • An ongoing, never ended process • Collective sense of belonging • Equal opportunities to participate in social and professional arenas of life • Removal of the physical, psychological and social barriers to a fully-fledged participation in life • Successful inclusion depends on the ongoing adjustments provided by a mainstream setting to meet the needs of a child • Integration (Warnock Report, 1978). • For the integration agenda, the problem is understood as the ‘non-fitting’ child • Physical placement of a child in a mainstream setting • Exposure of SEN children to social interaction • Practical measures associated with participation in selective activities • Placing in less restrictive environments • Successful integration depends on children’s capacity to fit in within a mainstream context

3. The benefits of inclusive practices. • ‘ Advocates of inclusive education argue that the social inclusion of students with SEN increases when they are educated with typically developing peers’ (De Leeuw, R.R, at al, 2018). • The ‘normalisation’ of a ‘difference’. • Words matter! The key stakeholders responsible for inclusive education, policy and practice must embrace inclusive language. These policies have a direct influence on students’ everyday lives. • Inclusive education – reciprocal relationships, interactions and mutually shared awareness of needs, impact and understandings.

4. Students with ASD and their experiences. • On average 20 times more likely to be excluded from school than their peers: one in five (21%) are excluded at least once (NAS, 2003). • Labelled as ‘autistic’ : ‘trouble, different, misunderstood’. • Bullied and abused- easy target. • Additional support at school inadvertently makes difference hyper-visible! TA’s responsible for delivering the lessons, not enough teacher-time. • The needs of students with ASD are often not being met. • “I just want to fit in. Make me normal!” (Humphrey and Lewis, 2008)

5. Parents’ voices in mainstreaming ASD • Depends on factors such as: the particularity of a special need, or on parental expectations towards children’s achievements (Parsons, et al., 2009) • Dissatisfaction with the quality of teaching and learning, and overall experiences reported by children and parents themselves. • Parents’ confidence in the effectiveness of inclusion diminishes as pupils with ASDs enter secondary school. • Parents often do not agree with schools’ policies (behaviour and effective safeguarding). • Concerned with children's mental health difficulties.

6. Teachers’ voices in mainstreaming ASD • More one-to-one teacher time • More money and more resources • More Training (university, knowledge and experience within school, knowledge and experience provided by outside agencies) • Teachers’ worries (quality of teaching and expectations: parents, SLT, ASD children; SEN teaching standards, workload and its’ impact on everyday preparation, negative impact on other TD children). • Filling In The Gaps: ‘Self-Help’ Approaches to Knowledge and Competency in Practice

7. Policies and Behaviour? • “Public experts in behaviour tell us to write lists of rules, make sure children are punished before they're rewarded, exclude disruptive children to protect the learning of others. There is often little in the way of objective assessment of a child's needs and interventions are based on guesses about their deficits. There's a limited repertoire; anger management, ASD type problems, signs of ADHD. There's nothing new here, we've done the same things for decades and failed to make a difference. It clearly doesn't work and maybe things have even got worse”. (The Guardian, 2014).

8. Exclusions and the law. • “It is shocking so many children with autism are missing out on education. All schools are legally bound to provide quality full-time education to all pupils, including children with autism. Asking parents to collect their children early or putting them on part-time hours is against the law and fails to address the underlying need for schools to make reasonable adjustments to include children with autism” (JolantaLasota, Chief Executive of Ambitious about Autism, 2013).

9. Behaviour Management: Solution-, or a Problem-Focused Approach? • Solution Focused Approach (Inclusive model) • A positive problem-solving model. The model encourages teachers, and others involved in developing effective approaches to behaviour is directed to find satisfactory ways forward rather than focusing on what is going wrong in a situation. • What are your best things, what are you good at? • What would tell you that you'd been successful when you get to the end of the year? • 'What's already working? Problem Focused Approach (Integrative model). • Detailed knowledge about what's gone wrong in the past and deciding which strategy will resolve the problem • Behaviour policy: traffic-light cards; loss of privileges; removal from class; detention; front of school; involvement of parents/carers; exclusion • Negative impact on mental health ( children and parents) • Often decreases motivation, hope.

10. Is full-inclusion a possibility, at all? • “Requiring schools to compete as if they are supermarket chains treats children as commodities and leads to pressure on schools to select their intake and increase pupil exclusions,” said Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (Guardian).