Autism Spectrum Disorders impact all aspects of the person’s experience as lifelong condition, including how they learn. Such autistic children and young people share common education needs with all others and are entitle to appropriate education. However, they have specific and special needs regarding the characteristic difficulties in autism in communication, social understanding, inflexibility abd sensory processing. Education is the key intervention for this group, and meaningful access to effective education is crutial.
Due to the diverse autism spectrum, no single educational intervention is effective for all; educators need a range of skills and strategies. Providing such education is challenging across Europe, particularly within Croatia, Poland and North Macedonia. Project partners, in previous projects, have identified good practice but also significant training/development needs. This project focuses on developing training to support effective teaching to ensure the inclusion of autistic learners within this region.
The project brings together universities, schools, autism professionals and NGOs across Europe to:
- Map country-specific and EU-wide good practice and areas needing development regarding educational inclusion of autistic children within diverse European states (focus on Croatia, North Macedonia and Poland);
- Develop a locally appropriate model training programme and materials for specialist educators supporting the educational inclusion of autistic children;
- Use these materials to pilot the training with specialist educators from mainstream/special schools across the targeted areas;
- Evaluate the appropriateness of the materials and impact of the training on teacher’s skills and practice;
- Share the programme and materials with stakeholders and make recommendations to policy-makers in these regions/across Europe.
Those involved come from various backgrounds – both national and cultural – and have a wide set of skills. The project coordinator, the University of Northampton works closely with all the other partners: Target Autism (UK), the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Science of the University of Zagreb and the Centar za Autizam (Croatia), the Pedagogical University of Kraków (Poland), the Association for improving the Life of People with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sina Svetulka and the Special School Dr Zaltan Sremec (North Macedonia) and Autism-Europe (Belgium).
Autism-Europe takes lead on the Dissemination and the Policy Recommendations Workpackages and co-leads the Impact and Sustainability one, apart from taking responsibility for the forth international multiplier event, which will be held in Brussels in 2020.
The partnership will be supported by an advisory group comprising individuals on the autism spectrum, parents and professionals, and has been designed to ensure that key stakeholders are actively involved in designing the project at all stages to ensure relevance and appropriateness.
About the Erasmus+ Programme
Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Its budget of €14.7 billion will provide opportunities for over 4 million Europeans to study, train, gain experience, and volunteer abroad.