Aline-Wendy Dunlop

Living with ASD: How do children and their parents assess their difficulties with social interaction and understanding?

Social interaction and understanding in autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are key areas of concern to practitioners and researchers alike. However, there is a relative lack of information about the skills and competencies of children and young people with ASD who access ordinary community facilities including mainstream education. In particular, contributions by parents and their children have been under-utilized. Using two structured questionnaires, 19 children with ASD reported difficulties with social skills including social engagement and temper management and also reported difficulties with social competence, affecting both friendships and peer relationships. Parents rated the children’s social skill and competence as significantly worse than did the children themselves, but there was considerable agreement about the areas that were problematic. Using an informal measure to highlight their children’s difficulties, parents raised issues relating to conversation skills, social emotional reciprocity and peer relationships. The implications for assessment and intervention are discussed.

Developing social interaction and understanding in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A groupwork intervention

Abstract Background Difficulties with social interaction and understanding lie at the heart of the communication disorder that characterises the autism spectrum. This study sought to improve social communication for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by means of a groupwork intervention focusing on social and emotional perspective‐taking, conversation skills, and friendship skills. It also aimed to address some of the limitations of previous interventions, including a lack of generalisation to other settings, so as to maximise inclusion in the community. Method A group of 46 high functioning children and adolescents with ASD (38 boys, 8 girls, age range 6–16 years) were allocated to one of 6 intervention groups. Each group met over a period of 12–16 weeks for a minimum of one 1½‐hour weekly session aimed at promoting key areas of social interaction and understanding, supported by home‐based practice. Results Significant gains were achieved in comparison with a normative population, and individual parent ratings showed marked and sustained changes in the key areas targeted in the group sessions. Conclusion Social communication in children and adolescents with ASD can be enhanced through the use of a groupwork intervention addressing social interaction and understanding.

Thinking About Transitions: One Framework or Many? Populating the Theoretical Model Over Time

This chapter draws from the theoretical foundations and some key results of a longitudinal study of transitions which began with the study cohort’s transition from early childhood settings into school in one local authority in Scotland. In thinking about transitions, the author follows a personal journey afforded by the need to consider whether a single theoretical framework can possibly support study of transitions over time. In so doing some of underpinning theories that have informed the different phases of the longitudinal study are considered and their place in, and the concept of, an overall theoretical framework is justified. While one overall framework is embraced, it is not seen as limiting, in that it houses many aspects of the breadth and depth of both theoretical and practical knowledge that is essential to the understanding of the field of educational transitions. The child is central to this thinking, it is the child who may be able to develop transitions capital over time, and it is the obligation of the researcher to exert agency over theoretical models applied so that they do not become straightjackets on data and thinking.

Transitions as a Tool for Change

This chapter interrogates contemporary perspectives on transitions and their potential to be seen as tools for change. It conceptualises ‘Transitions as a tool for change’ as a novel concept that embraces the perspectives of practitioners, children and families. ‘Transitions as a tool for change’ has been generated by and developed in the Scottish POET project through three themes: children’s learning journeys, professional beliefs and practices and family engagement. Using these themes, we explore understandings of transition, consider a wider literature that may inform the concept of ‘transitions as a tool for change’ and draw from our own research to bring insight to the concept, which has a potential to inform future research directions and policy decisions.

Aspirations and actions: early childhood from policy to practice in Scotland

This paper explores early childhood experience in Scotland in terms of how readily the aspirations of policy convert to day-to-day practices. Ambitions to improve the lives of children and families have been high on the political agenda. Policy may be understood as a tool that aims to influence childhood experience in positive ways. If this is to be so, then the processes that effect change and their limitations need to be understood better, as do the underpinning values and assumptions. The workforce is at the heart of the endeavour to put policy aspirations into action: they are considered to be agents of change. In exploring such issues this paper draws on a policy-based functional analysis of the childrens workforce [Dunlop, A.-W., L. Seagraves, S. Henderson, J. Henry, J. Martlew, and J. Fee. 2011. A Policy-Based Functional Analysis of the Childrens Workforce. For Scottish Government: Children and Young People Social Care Directorate, Workforce and Capacity Issues Division] and on policy developments since. The paper therefore discusses Scottish policy aspirations for young children and their families, the contribution of the workforce to achieving those aspirations and asks if staff competence in itself is sufficient to ensure policy delivery for all in a climate where child poverty continues to contribute to unequal lives.

Pedagogies of Educational Transition: Current Emphases and Future Directions

In exploring the pedagogies of educational transitions, the chapters in this book reflect both the personal and collective nature of transitions. While transitions are experienced by individuals, they occur within social, educational, community, political, economic and institutional frames, involving children and families in expanding sets of relationships. Examining experiences of transition not only illuminates the potential influences in individual lives but also contributes to our collective understandings of transition. As a result, we can highlight the journeys of transition for individual children and families and discuss the shared transition experiences of children in Sweden as they move from preschool to the preschool class and then to school, challenges in recognising diversity and promoting inclusion in different contexts, the experiences of Indigenous children as they start school in Australia and New Zealand, implications for children as they experience different pedagogical and curriculum approaches across preschool and school in Iceland and the potential of transitions as a focus for change in Scotland.

Childminders, home based day care and young children's transitions

In the changing political context of early learning and childcare in Scotland it is important to gather knowledge in order to understand the work of childminders and to make it more visible. The small scale scoping study presented here seeks to explore the role played, in Scotland, by childminders as they welcome and care for young children. In Scotland there are currently 6,102 people registered as childminders to provide day care in their own homes: they provide for 34,600 children (Care Inspectorate, 2015). Many of these childminders (about 80%) are members of the Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA). Their work is equivalent to that of day-carers and home-based carers in other countries. Typically, the children who benefit from their services have working parents who often choose this form of home-based care as the next-best choice to having their children at home.

Design and organisation of the transition from kindergarten to elementary school and the integration of this theme in (university degree) training in Scotland

Two independently important but not previously juxtaposed nor jointly interrogated topics are brought together in this paper: the design and organisation of early childhood transitions between sectors, in particular from preschool to elementary education, and the integration of this theme in the training and qualifications of educators in their (University) programme of study. Key elements and drivers of transitions experience that should be included in the training of educators are identified and it is proposed that their inclusion will benefit a continuous process in young children’s education: it is shown that such integration is underway in Scottish early educators’ programmes of study.

Das kind in mittelpunkt: Frühpädagogische curricula in Schottland

Schottland ist eine der vier Nationen im Vereinigten Konigreich. Das Land hat 5 Millionen Einwohner und hat seit langem juristisch und administrativ eigene exekutive Verantwortung fur sein Bildungssystem. In Schottland beginnt die Grundschule jeweils Mitte August fur Kinder der Altersgruppe von vier Jahren und sechs Monaten bis funf Jahre und funf Monate. Eine Reihe von Entwicklungen haben in den letzten Jahren zur Verabschiedung von curricularen Rahmenvorgaben fur Kinder von drei bis funf Jahren (Scottish Consultative Council an the Curriculum/ SCCC, 1999) gefuhrt. Die Grundschulen orientieren sich an den „5–14 nationalen Leitlinien fur Curriculum und Bewertung in Schottland“ (Scottish Office Education Department, 1990). Kinder konnen bis zum Alter von 5 Jahren und 5 Monaten in einer Kindertagesstatte sein, aber auch ab dem Alter von 4 Jahren und 5 Monaten die Grundschule besuchen. Im internationalen Vergleich ist das Eintrittsalter fur die formale Schulbildung viel niedriger als in den meisten Landern: aus diesem Grund ist es wichtig, dass in dem folgenden Kapitel beide Curricula mit Blick auf ihren Bezug zueinander diskutiert werden.

Using Research Methodology To Explore Quality of Social Interaction.

SUMMARY The research on which this paper is based looked at Interaction Skills for Integration through case studies in the West of Scotland. The paper focuses on the research methodology used to explore practice and considers the idea of a link between research investigation and the promotion of quality. The study was informed by understandings of developmentally appropriate practice and concluded that a focus on communication, and on the nature, frequency and quality of the social interaction is central in effective integration because of the significance of such understandings for special needs childrens access to social contexts and consequently to learning. This paper asserts that the research process has potential effects on the development of interaction skills and strategies and promotes effective and reflective practice. However in order for such advantages to be maintained it is claimed that staff teams need to build mechanisms into their practice to ensure continued reflexivity and investigator...