“It's When You See the World in a Different Way” - a Pilot Study Examining the Impact of a Teacher Delivered Autism Awareness Program for Mainstream Primary School Pupils

Background: Pupils with autism in mainstream schools are at a greater risk of bullying than their non-autistic peers. One key area identified as contributing to this is a lack of knowledge and understanding about autism. This can lead to increased negative stigma and also negatively impact on pupils’ development of self-identity. Increasing autism awareness can reduce these negative outcomes. Previous research has identified three effective types of information provision for reducing negative stigma and increasing understanding: descriptive Information; explanatory information and directive information. In collaboration with teaching staff an autism peer awareness programme (APA) for primary school aged pupils was created that focused on the concept of neurodiversity and included all three types of information. APA was designed to fit in with the existing school curriculum and be delivered by existing school staff.

Objectives: The aim of the study, produced by and for school-based professionals, was to examine the impact of a teacher delivered five week autism awareness program on increasing knowledge and understanding of autism in children aged between nine to eleven years old attending mainstream educational settings.

Methods: 110 pupils from four government funded mainstream primary schools in the UK took part. Participants ranged in age from 9 years 8 months to 11 years 2 months (M= 10 years; 2 months; SD= 0;7). The five week APA program consisted of five 45 minute lessons. Baseline and post intervention questionnaires were taken. The questionnaire consisted of an open question ‘What is autism?’ and thirteen statements about autism that pupils had to judge as either ‘True’ or ‘False’, or select ‘Don’t know’.

Results: Pupils answered significantly more of the statements correctly following the APA sessions (80%, n=1148) than at baseline (57%, n = 814), χ² = 56.86 (1), p < 0.001. In response to the ‘What is autism?’ question 37% of children at baseline either did not know what autism was (n = 36) or left the question blank (n = 5). All children provided a response after the APA, these were also more detailed, with post APA responses containing significantly more words (M=10.05, SD=5.09) than those at baseline (M = 8.47, SD = 5.45), t(218) = -2.21, p = 0.03. The word clouds in Figures 1 (baseline) and 2 (Post) [attached] display the terms most frequently used to describe what autism is. At post there was more awareness of the main areas of difference associated with autism, including sensory and communication differences with no reference to anger.

Conclusions: The results from the study are promising and indicate that the APA program can increase students’ knowledge and understanding of autism. Furthermore, it demonstrated that school staff can deliver the programme to fit in with the existing school curriculum, with little disruption. The lesson plans developed for the study could therefore be easily adopted by more schools to support autism awareness in Primary school aged pupils. Further research is needed to see if the increase in knowledge results in less stigma and tangible benefits for autistic pupils within the school.