Participation in an Online Autism Training Is Associated with Improved Attitudes Toward Inclusion and Self-Efficacy Among Educators in Training in Quebec and the US

Background: Educators are often underprepared to successfully mainstream autistic students.Benefits of successful inclusion include improved academic and social skills among autistic students and increased acceptance of diversity among non-autistic peers (Ferraioli & Harris, 2011).Ineffective attempts at inclusion can lead to lack of progress, social isolation and bullying (Humphrey & Lewis, 2008). Prior autism trainings for educators focused on strategies to support autistic students specifically, including ABA (Alexander et al., 2015; Berthune, 2017), developmental (Probst, & Leppert, 2008), and cross-disciplinary approaches (Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs); Chang et al., 2016), without highlighting inclusion.The one published autism training study which aimed to promote positive attitudes toward inclusion among aspiring educators included only one item assessing attitudes toward inclusion (LeBlanc et al., 2009).Strategies to promote inclusion may be particularly useful in cultural contexts where children with disabilities are less frequently mainstreamed, such as Quebec, which has the lowest proportion of mainstreamed students in Canada (Ducharme & Magloire, 2018).

Objectives: 1) Develop a training providing up-to-date information about autism including cross-disciplinary evidence-based practices which highlights Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a tool to maximize inclusion. 2) Evaluate if training is associated with improved attitudes toward inclusion, autism knowledge, and self-efficacy among aspiring educators in Quebec and Georgia.

Methods: With input from teachers in NYC, we adapted an hour long online autism training which has been associated with improved knowledge among college students internationally (Obeid et al., 2015) to teach aspiring educators about autism, evidence-based practices and strategies to promote inclusion, including UDL. Education students in Georgia (n = 95; Mean age = 19.47; 84.2% Female) and Quebec (n = 179; Mean age = 24.81; 92.2.2% Female) completed the Teacher Attitudes toward Inclusion Scale (Cullen et al., 2010), Autism Self-Efficacy Scale for Teachers (Ruble et al., 2013), and Autism Stigma and Knowledge Questionnaire (Harrison et al., 2017) before and after an hour-long online training. Materials were in French in Quebec. Results: At pretest, participants in Quebec exhibited higher autism knowledge (M = 39.93, SD = 2.88) but lower attitudes toward inclusion (M = 62.23, SD = 8.69) than US students (M = 37.19, SD = 3.69; M = 67.68, SD = 8.70; ps ≤ .001). Self-efficacy did not differ (p = .86). Training was associated with improved attitudes toward inclusion and self-efficacy across sites (ps ≤ .001). Improvements in autism knowledge survived statistical corrections in Quebec (p < .001) but not the US (p = .02).

Conclusions: An online autism training emphasizing UDL as a strategy to promote inclusion shows promise as an efficient and cost-effective method for helping educators successfully integrate neurodiverse students. Given that attitudes toward inclusion were heightened in Alberta, Canada (which has a long history of inclusion; Ducharme & Magloire, 2018) relative to Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore (Loreman et al., 2007) while aspiring educators in Quebec endorsed more negative attitudes toward inclusion (despite heightened autism knowledge) than students in the US, future research should examine the degree to which regional differences in legislation promoting inclusion predict educators’ attitudes toward inclusion.