Professionals have found autism to be an enigmatic condition. While necessary
biomedical research continues, a gap exists in the inclusion of parental opinions,
knowledge, and experiences in educational planning for their autistic children. The
purpose of this mixed methods study was to identify the factors that the parents felt
contributed to the academic success of their autistic child in the public school classroom
environment and ways in which their ideas might contribute to overall educational
planning and classroom design in structure, curriculum development, and intervention
strategies which might lead to reduced stress. Parental input was explored through
semistructured personal interviews with 8 parents and the administration of a 32-question
survey questionnaire to 109 parents of autistic children. A content analysis was done on
the qualitative data, and an analysis of quantitative data reported the frequency and
percentages of the participant responses. Findings from the data revealed multiple areas
in need of improved educational services that include the classroom organization,
educator training and knowledge about the autistic condition, educator support, effective
communication, and behavioral management of the symptoms of autism. The social
change impact from the study's findings have the potential to inform educational
planning, foster collaboration, increase educator participation in autism training methods,
secure necessary funding for evidence based autism educational programs, promote
further research, and provide awareness of existing empirically based approaches
designed to meet the needs of a vulnerable population.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:waldenu.edu/oai:scholarworks.waldenu.edu:dissertations-2408 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Creators | Klein, Antonia |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks |
| Source Sets | Walden University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies |
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