A growing body of evidence shows school teachers are critically unprepared to educate Australia's increasing cohort of autistic students. Students say the consequences of the autism knowledge gap can be life changing, and urgent attention is needed as autism diagnoses rise. This special report was prepared for international day for people with a disability.
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00:00 Connor Winfield was a gifted student, so no one could understand why he found school so difficult.
00:07 I would bet that most of my teachers didn't understand what autism was.
00:14 He struggled with exams, deadlines, anxiety and most of all, bullying.
00:19 By the end of year 10 at my mainstream Catholic high school, I was attending probably two classes on one day a week.
00:32 He's one of more than 223,000 NDIS participants who list autism as their primary disability. 69% are aged between 7 and 18.
00:42 Certainly teachers do not feel prepared to teach autistic students in education classrooms.
00:50 Current education standards require teachers to meet students' diverse needs, but what they're taught at university isn't specific to autism.
00:58 It's only one semester and it's very general and I do not feel it is meeting the needs.
01:03 On top of that, most mainstream schools aren't resourced to provide the flexibility that neurodiverse students often require.
01:11 There's a lot of money spent, for example, on teacher aids and teacher aids are not necessarily the best way to support students.
01:19 There's a lot of other things that can be done, but there's a lack of knowledge.
01:23 Addressing the autism knowledge gap is the subject of debate after the Disability Role Commission,
01:28 with commissioners divided on the future of segregated education, some calling for it to end by 2051.
01:34 Well, that's all well and good to suggest that, but we also have a mainstream school setting that's not set up to accommodate them.
01:40 Advocates fear it will get worse without an overhaul.
01:43 We're seeing research showing us the rise in homeschooling and school refusal.
01:48 You can't lay blame here on teachers, they simply don't have the training or resources.
01:52 Autism overlaps with health, disability and education, which has led advocates to fear that the issue will be handballed between departments and left unresolved.
02:02 Education Minister Jason Clare says an expert panel is underway to help students most at risk of falling behind, including students with a disability.
02:10 There's going to be some big real-time ramifications for this in the state education department,
02:14 so I think we've got a terrible situation at the moment, but I think it's about to get a lot worse.
02:19 Teaching degrees should just automatically include courses on how neurodiverse students can be supported.
02:27 An obvious solution for some, more complex for others.
02:30 Ashley Keating, ABC News, Canberra.
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