Supporting Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Schools

Recommendations

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Pre-School Children and School-Aged Students with ASD A small number of very young children with ASD may require specialised and intensive interventions focused, for example, on language or behaviour development or the acquisition of social and emotional skills. The HSE has advised us that children’s network disability teams already identify these children and, where necessary, provide therapy interventions. It would be useful for the HSE to make parents more aware of the availability of this service. It is also important that the HSE ensures that, where such specialised and intensive early intervention is required, it is consistently available to the required level which may or may not involve grouping of children to avail of the service. 2.1.4.3 Pre-schools We believe arrangements must be in place in mainstream pre-schools to enable children with special educational needs, including ASD to be meaningfully included. In the first place every child with ASD should be welcomed and able to attend their local pre-school, though some may need specialist settings. This should be a condition of the ECCE scheme. Children with ASD should meet staff there that are experienced and have had the necessary training to meet their needs, including training in early years’ education and special educational needs that has a component on ASD. At a minimum, we consider the pre-school leader should hold a qualification in childcare/early education at level 8 on the NQF and pre-school assistants should hold a qualification at level 6 or equivalent in the childcare/early education field. Depending on numbers of children enrolled, some pre-school settings will only have a pre-school leader. The children’s network teams should continue to provide parents and pre-school staff with specialist information, training and guidance on appropriate interventions based on the individual needs of the child. Some children with ASD (or other special educational needs), with complex needs, will require more intensive interventions and individualised support than other children with ASD. Children’s network teams need to identify who requires this level of additional support over and above that provided by the pre-school leader and assistant. Trained visiting support workers should be available to assist with implementing programmes for children with these more complex difficulties, either through working with individual children or small groups – where required. These support workers should have a qualification of at least level 6 or 7 on the NFQ that includes training in early childhood education and care with a focus on disability. The Departments of Health, Education and Children should agree where responsibility should lie for the funding, sanctioning and allocation of this support which should take into account the level and complexity of children’s needs. Figure 1 below summarises the main supports that the NCSE considers should be in place in ECCE funded settings, for young children, with complex special educational needs, where required. 34 Supporting Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Schools – NCSE Policy Advice 2015
Pre-School Children and School-Aged Students with ASD Figure 1: Supports Needed for Some Young Children with ASD in Pre-School Settings Support for child within pre-school Pre-School Leader (NFQ L.8) Pre-School Assistant (NFQ L.6) Support for child from outside pre-school HSE Children’s Disability Teams (psychology, speech and language, OT) and Early Childhood Development Specialists (NFQ L. 8) CHILD AND FAMILY Visiting Support Worker (NFQ 6/7) It is likely that there will always be a small number of young children requiring separate specialist provision to meet their needs. These are children with extremely complex health/medical needs who require constant one-to-one supervision and support. A small number of separate, special pre-schools should be maintained, linked to special schools for children with more complex special educational needs, to meet their needs as is already the case for school-going children in special schools and classes. Finally, a mechanism will be required to transfer information between ECCE centres and NCSE SENOs to assist with planning school placements following preschool. The NCSE recognises why the current system of special pre-schools and early intervention classes are in place and that they work well in some instances where teachers are trained and so on. We are confident, however, that if implemented, our proposal will result in a better early childhood care and education system because: Supporting Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Schools – NCSE Policy Advice 2015 35
Page 1: Supporting Students with Autism Spe
Page 4 and 5: © NCSE 2015 National Council for S
Page 6 and 7: 2.3 Developing Knowledge, Skills, U
Page 8 and 9: Index of Tables Table 1: Increase i
Page 10 and 11: Abbreviations ABA ACCS ADHD APP ASD
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Page 14 and 15: Executive Summary Executive Summary
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Page 20 and 21: Executive Summary Developing teache
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Page 24 and 25: Executive Summary HSE Multidiscipli
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Page 28 and 29: Introduction 1. Introduction Under
Page 30 and 31: Introduction • A continuum of edu
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Pre-School Children and School-Aged
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Appendix 1: Summary of Previous Rel
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Appendix 2: Historical Context and
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Appendix 3: List of Special Schools
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Appendix 4: The Consultation Proces
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Appendix 4: The Consultation Proces
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Appendix 5: List of Interventions A
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Appendix 5: List of Interventions P
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Appendix 6: List of Recommendations
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Bibliography Bibliography Agency fo
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Bibliography Reed, P., Osborne, L.A
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Supporting Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Schools

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