Background and aims

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to people's lives, especially for families, whose children have been taken out of schools during lockdown restrictions and required to learn from home. Little is known, however, about the perceived impact of the lockdown restrictions on the educational experiences of autistic children and young people – a group whose conventional schooling experiences are already often challenging. In this study, we sought to (1) understand these experiences from the perspectives of autistic young people and their parents, and (2) identify the underlying sources of positive experiences at this challenging time, in order to inform the ways in which autistic children might flourish at school in more normal times.

Methods

Ninety-one Australian participants, including 16 autistic young people aged 12–18 years, 32 autistic parents and 43 non-autistic parents of autistic young people aged 3–18 years, took part in semi-structured interviews about their experiences of life during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews were subjected to reflexive, thematic analysis to identify themes and subthemes for each research question.

Results

Overall, our participants initially found the transition to learning from home extremely challenging, with parents reporting that the support received from schools was far from adequate. After that initial period of transition, however, many autistic children reported flourishing at home both educationally and personally. For these children and families, we identified three key ingredients essential to this flourishing, including: (i) the importance of connected, trusting relationships (‘people’); (ii) the sensory and social safety of home (‘place’); and (iii) the flexibility to pace and structure learning to suit the individual child (‘time’).

Conclusions

While the initial COVID-19 lockdown presented many challenges to children learning at home, there were aspects of this otherwise-unsettling situation that enabled children to thrive and from which we can learn for the future.

Implications

These findings have important implications for understanding how and when autistic children might thrive in institutional educational settings once the pandemic subsides, focusing on the relationships between teachers and students, the nature of the physical learning environment and the need for greater flexibility in planning the school day.

中文翻译：

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“它更适合我的需求”：自闭症学生和家长在 COVID-19 大流行早期阶段在家学习的经历

 背景和目标

COVID-19 大流行对人们的生活造成了前所未有的干扰，尤其是对家庭来说，他们的孩子在封锁限制期间被迫离开学校，并被要求在家学习。然而，人们对封锁限制对自闭症儿童和青少年教育经历的影响知之甚少——这些群体的传统教育经历已经常常具有挑战性。在这项研究中，我们试图（1）从自闭症年轻人及其父母的角度理解这些经历，以及（2）确定在这个充满挑战的时期积极经历的潜在来源，以便告知自闭症儿童如何在正常情况下可能会在学校蓬勃发展。

 方法

91 名澳大利亚参与者，包括 16 名 12-18 岁的自闭症青少年、32 名自闭症父母和 43 名 3-18 岁自闭症青少年的非自闭症父母，参加了半结构化访谈，了解他们在活动期间的生活经历。 COVID-19 大流行的初始阶段。对访谈进行反思性主题分析，以确定每个研究问题的主题和子主题。

 结果

总体而言，我们的参与者最初发现向在家学习的过渡极具挑战性，家长报告说从学校获得的支持远远不够。然而，在最初的过渡期之后，许多自闭症儿童报告说，他们在家中的教育和个人方面都取得了蓬勃发展。对于这些儿童和家庭，我们确定了繁荣所必需的三个关键要素，包括：(i) 相互联系、信任的关系（“人”）的重要性； (ii) 家庭（“场所”）的感官和社会安全； (iii) 灵活调整学习节奏和结构，以适应个别孩子的需要（“时间”）。

 结论

虽然最初的 COVID-19 封锁给孩子们在家学习带来了许多挑战，但这种令人不安的情况的某些方面使孩子们能够茁壮成长，我们可以从中学习，为未来做好准备。

 影响

这些发现对于理解大流行消退后自闭症儿童如何以及何时在机构教育环境中茁壮成长具有重要意义，重点关注教师和学生之间的关系、物理学习环境的性质以及在规划上课时间时需要更大的灵活性。