Abstract
Over decades, the concern for the quality of psychoeducational practices for students with autism spectrum disorders has led to study to what extent are evidence-based educational methods disseminated among teachers. The purpose of this cross-sectional study, taking as reference Hsiao and Sorensen’s previous research, was to identify through a survey to what extent social-communication evidence-based practices for these students were provided in teacher education and in-service training programs, in a sample of 108 special education teachers from Spain, and to compare these results with Hsiao and Sorensen’s. Overall, more than 70% of the teachers reported that evidence-based practices in their teacher education programs (87.6%) and in-service training programs (73.6%) were never taught or mentioned incidentally. Finally, a higher percentage of addressing on each practice (i.e., mentioned and discussed or mentioned and taught through direct instruction) is shown in the sample of American teachers compared to the Spaniards, in both training paths.
Highlights
Over the last century, people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social-communication skills and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviors [1], have become increasingly present in different societies
The population was recruited in Asturias, a region located in the north of Spain with 1,022,800 people in 2019 [42], where 7% of the school population with special education needs (SEN) is associated with autism spectrum disorder [43], and there has been an increase of 513% of these pupils over the past decade [44]
We concluded that in the context of the study, teacher training should have as its purpose something that for the teachers is insufficient, which is the dissemination of knowledge about evidence-based practice (EBP)
Summary
People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social-communication skills and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviors [1], have become increasingly present in different societies. The growth in the percentage of people with ASD has gone from 0.05%, established in 1966, to the current range, between 0.9% and 1.5% of the population [2]. This reality translates into the educational field in the rising presence of students with ASD in schools [3] that need specialized educational accommodation due to their social and communicative particularities [4,5]. In the United States, between the school years 2011–2012 and 2018–2019, the number of students ages 3–21 who obtained special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) increased from 12.9% of total public-school registration (6.4 million) to 14.1% (7.1 million). Cardinal et al [7] point out that the rate of ASD growth has proceeded at a statically significant higher rate than have national changes in special education
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