Centre for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)

Understanding Teaching Practices of Inclusive Participation for Male Students with Autism in Saudi Arabian Primary School

Literature indicates that students with autism tend to be more passive and show more levels of non-engagement compared to their peers with other types of disabilities, and teachers struggle to enhance their social and academic participation in mainstream classrooms. As a result, students with autism can perform well below their peers. To examine the challenges that teachers encounter to promote the participation of students with autism at the classroom level, the aim of this study was an analytical aim based on the methodological approach to illustrate and analyse the phenomenon across several case, which provided an understanding of teaching practices in inclusive classrooms for students with autism in Saudi Arabia (SA). The study adopted a longitudinal multiple case studies design with four participating teachers from two primary schools in Jeddah, SA using a combination of methods (qualitative and quantitative). The findings of the study showed that teachers varied in their teaching practices as some excluded the students with autism in classroom activities and others included them. Teachers arrived at their teaching decisions to promote the participation of students with autism in a complex way of thinking involving their attitudes toward inclusion, their level of perceived teaching efficacy, their perceived causes of the students’ need and their expectations about the students’ learning progress in their classrooms. A model of how these factors interact was presented.