University of Wollongong, School of Education, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Wollongong, NSW 2522 Australia; Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC), Brisbane, Australia.
Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC), Brisbane, Australia; Aspect Research Centre for Autism Practice, Building 1, Level 2, 14 Aquatic Drive, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086, Australia; Griffith University School of Medicine and Dentistry, Australia.
Res Dev Disabil. 2022 Sep;128:104301. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104301. Epub 2022 Jul 4.
Despite awareness of the need to support autistic students in transitions, great variability is found in transition supports provided across different school environments and staff within schools. Moreover, strategies implemented may not provide autistic students with the supports they need to reduce their anxiety and build their sense of self-determination during transitions.
The current paper aimed to determine what types of transition supports are employed in Australian schools to support autistic students and to consider these supports through the lens of self-determination theory.
Surveys were conducted with 422 parents, educators and education specialists who provided information on transition supports employed in schools in open-ended questions. Transition supports were explored in more depth through interviews with a subset of 30 participants.
Findings indicate that schools provided a range of strategies, programmes and planning processes to support students in transitions. However, students were often passive recipients of supports who were rarely involved in the planning and implementation of strategies.
The results of this study suggest that current transition supports implemented in schools may support autistic students in some transitions, but are not likely to develop their self-determination to successfully navigate transitions over the long-term. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS?: Drawing on self-determination theory, this study provides a unique and much needed examination of the types of strategies employed in schools and offers a critical reflection as to whether these strategies are likely to support autistic students to develop a sense of autonomy, competence and relatedness to successfully manage future transitions.
尽管人们意识到需要支持自闭症学生进行过渡，但在不同的学校环境和学校内部的工作人员中，过渡支持的差异很大。此外，实施的策略可能无法为自闭症学生提供他们在过渡期间减少焦虑和建立自我决定感所需的支持。
本研究旨在确定澳大利亚学校采用了哪些类型的过渡支持来支持自闭症学生，并通过自我决定理论来考虑这些支持。
对 422 名家长、教育工作者和教育专家进行了调查，他们在开放式问题中提供了关于学校采用的过渡支持的信息。通过对 30 名参与者的子集进行访谈，更深入地探讨了过渡支持。
研究结果表明，学校提供了一系列策略、计划和规划流程来支持学生过渡。然而，学生通常是被动接受支持的，很少参与策略的规划和实施。
本研究的结果表明，目前学校实施的过渡支持可能在某些过渡中支持自闭症学生，但不太可能培养他们的自我决定能力，以成功应对长期过渡。
本研究借鉴自我决定理论，对学校采用的策略类型进行了独特且非常需要的考察，并对这些策略是否有可能支持自闭症学生发展自主性、能力感和关联性，以成功管理未来过渡进行了批判性反思。
