Effective collaboration between key stakeholders increases the educational opportunities and outcomes of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although the value of collaboration between the central members of a student’s network has been widely cited, how collaboration occurs between different stakeholder groups in the education of Australian primary and secondary students with ASD is not widely known. The aim of this review was to identify the factors that influence collaborative practices between three primary stakeholder groups supporting the education of Australian students with ASD: family, school, and community. Through this lens, we analysed the intent of the collaborative practices as well as the specific details of the collaborative practices identified across the research literature published since the implementation of the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2006). Results from this review indicate existing motivations and processes of collaboration, as well as directions for future research and practice.

Young people with intellectual disability (ID) frequently have challenges with self-regulation that impact their success and participation in daily life. As they often require additional support with self-regulation, it is important to consider regulatory function and skill development within the context of co-regulatory interactions with caregivers. This scoping review aimed to identify factors associated with improved self-regulation and co-regulation in young people with ID. The review was conducted using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) framework, with 142 full-text records reviewed and critically appraised. The diverse factors that affect regulatory function in young people with ID fit within the five categories identified in the model of factors contributing to self-regulation enactment — biology, skills, motivation, caregiver support, and environmental context — highlighting the relevance of this model to regulatory function for this population. This review’s findings allow this model to be refined further for young people with ID, identifying the unique factors contributing to self-regulation enactment for this population and intervention characteristics that may support regulatory function for these individuals.

India has made significant progress in improving the enrolment of students with disability but still has a long way to go before schools can be called inclusive. Despite the widely acknowledged relevance of assessments in shaping teaching and learning practices, little research has been done in disability-inclusive assessment in the Indian setting. In this paper, we explore teachers’ perceptions of disability inclusion in formative assessments, including the use of various kinds of accommodations and adaptations, factors that affect the implementation of disability-inclusive formative assessments, and challenges. It is argued that teacher professional development and teacher–parent partnerships are essential for ensuring the inclusion of students with disability in formative assessments. Unless assessment is given its due importance in disability-inclusive education, achievement gaps between children with and without disability may widen due to the unavailability of learning data and its use.

This qualitative study focused on educators’ perspectives of teaching students with dysgraphia. Dysgraphia can be referred to as a specific learning disorder (SLD) in writing and includes difficulties with handwriting, spelling, and/or composition skills. To explore the educators’ experiences, an interpretative phenomenological analysis method was implemented. This involved generating semistructured interviews and locating key concepts from these interviews, in tandem with researcher reflections. The results indicated that educators developed their self-efficacy in supporting students with dysgraphia on the job, augmented by self-guided and external searches for information about dysgraphia. The participants described their colleagues as generally unable to provide them with dysgraphia-specific knowledge due to a lack of awareness of dysgraphia within schools. Two of the three educators pursued Multisensory Structured Language training, departing the classroom to work in private tuition. Three teachers offered strategies for supporting students with dysgraphia, such as explicit, systematic, scaffolded, and repetitive instruction coupled with assistive technologies or lined paper and slant boards. The study concluded that dysgraphia-specific professional learning, coupled with collective efficacy, could proactively build teachers’ capacity and self-efficacy in supporting dysgraphia within an inclusive education context. These measures would more aptly support students with dysgraphia to reach their potential.

Team participation in whole-school action research can assist the educational reform required for autistic students. Little is known about the experience of school community stakeholders engaged in the first stage of an implementation science process: evaluation of current practice. This study was designed to explore stakeholder experience and knowledge gained following a process of evaluation of whole-school practice related to the education of autistic students. A collective case study was employed across two Australian secondary schools, with team meetings designed to provide an opportunity for the self-evaluation process to take place and the data for the study to be generated. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the dialogue between participants during focus group discussions with each team. Findings are represented through six themes that provide insight for future practice. Both stakeholder teams reported that the evaluation process was a positive experience to engage in and resulted in a strengthening of knowledge about good practice for autistic students. Findings provide encouragement to other school teams engaging in a similar process; however, future teams may need to feel ready for this work and might benefit from the structure of a wider action-research cycle aligned to implementation science processes.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 is underpinned by the provision of quality inclusive education for all young persons, including persons with disabilities. The universal design for learning (UDL) framework provides the basis for establishing an inclusive pedagogical learning environment in classrooms. However, implementing such an inclusive pedagogical framework continues to be profoundly challenging across all countries, including Australia. Teacher attitude is the most important construct in efforts to create inclusive educational contexts. The aim of this study was to examine secondary school teachers’ attitudes towards the UDL framework in Australia. One hundred and twenty mainstream secondary classroom teachers in Sydney completed an online survey. The mean values and standard deviations of a self-designed UDL framework were calculated to examine teacher attitudes. Correlations and multiple regressions were conducted to verify the relationship between teachers’ attitudes and their background variables. The main results indicated that Australian secondary school teacher attitudes towards the UDL framework were generally positive, although they still had some practical concerns, such as having inflexible ideas about how to provide instructions. The findings provide useful insights for developing professional teacher training to promote inclusive education, where the UDL framework is a lens for interpreting inclusive education.

Teacher–student relationships are critically important for student engagement and learning. Increasingly, children with additional behavioural, physical, communication, and learning needs are supported in the classroom by teacher aides working alongside teachers. Although the teacher aide role is often described as relational, few studies have explicitly examined the nature of the teacher aide–child relationship. This exploratory study in primary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand addresses this gap. Seven teacher aides were interviewed, and thematic analysis was used to construct common themes. The findings show that aides have time to individually know and care for each child and so develop a special relationship that is distinct from other relationships at school. In addition, the relationship is seen as essential to meet the child’s needs and thus enable them to engage in their learning. The teacher aides impact positively on the child’s sense of belonging, emotions, and wellbeing, which act as pathways to student engagement. Further research is needed to explore how these special and essential relationships can be optimised, and, in collaboration with teachers, improve the short- and long-term psychological, social, and educational outcomes for children.

Following the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, questions concerning the joint education of students with and without special educational needs remain to be answered. Currently, there is a need for knowledge about the necessary conditions for a successful implementation of inclusive education. Thus, the aim of the present study is to identify conditions for the implementation of inclusion that are seen as necessary by primary school principals. Therefore, 32 primary school principals were interviewed. The results of the interview study reveal that factors like personnel, financial and material resources as well as building infrastructure in primary schools are seen as important requirements for the successful realisation of inclusive education. Apart from that, the importance of attitudes towards inclusion and sociopolitical conditions for the realisation of inclusion became apparent. Further conditions, which are mentioned from the interviewed principals’ point of view, are related to teacher training, appropriate class sizes and, for example, opportunities for exchanging information. The results of the study indicate that there are essential obstacles as perceived by primary school principals that can impede the implementation of inclusion in primary schools.

In this article, I call for a cripping of environmental education as a necessary move in shifting away from the field’s current conceptions of disability as defect and deficiency, and towards disrupting the structures and processes that operate as normalizing technologies within ableism/sanism. Through an examination of the ways that the field of environmental education has/has not engaged critical disability politics, I illuminate how disability is not often included within environmental education literature. When it is, it is often through the use of disability as metaphor or through recommendations for best practices in accommodating disabilities. More often though within environmental education, disability has operated as a hidden curriculum, underpinning much of the field’s curricular, pedagogical, and even philosophical foundations. Through a cripping of the field these compulsory able-bodied/able-minded assumptions are made apparent. I suggest that by centering crip bodies and minds through cripistemologies, we might enable new ways of knowing, being in, connecting to, and understanding the natural world.

By ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2018, Ireland has undertaken inter alia the obligation to implement ‘an inclusive education system at all levels and lifelong learning’, as required by Article 24. However, concerns have been repeatedly expressed about the practice of inclusive education in Ireland in terms of admission policies, funding, school choice and reduced timetabling. This paper investigates whether, and to what extent, the current approach to special educational needs (SEN) in Ireland complies with the aim of ensuring an inclusive educational system in which children with disabilities are valued and empowered. Ireland is an interesting case-study due to its history of marginalisation of children with disabilities and its relatively recent engagement with the concept of inclusive education. By using a socio-legal approach, drawing on qualitative interviews with key stakeholders in education combined with a legal analysis of relevant primary and secondary sources, it examines the current practices relating to the education of children with disabilities in Ireland.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that can affect a person’s ability to manage the complexities of varied social and environmental situations. This is particularly evident in the dynamic context of a school classroom. To assist students with ASD to navigate the complexities of Australian primary and secondary mainstream classrooms, educators are required to provide ‘reasonable adjustments’ to support learning; that is, to make changes that are practicable and achievable in order for students to access learning on the same basis as their peers. We present an argument that the ‘reasonable adjustments’ made by schools to ensure that students with ASD have equitable learning opportunities should meet a criterion of acceptability where the adjustment is evidence based. The paper also offers a summary of evidence-based pedagogical strategies that have been effective for students with ASD and concludes with a discussion offering evidence-based practices as a solution to meeting legislative requirements for students with disability.

Recent sociometric research has described students with special educational needs (SEN) as less accepted and experiencing more social difficulties than their classmates without SEN. This study addresses the social participation of students with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) in regular schools while also focusing on the quality of their best friendship. In this longitudinal study, 313 secondary students, including 46 with MLD, were first examined while at Grade 7 (T1) and 2 years later at Grade 9 (T2). In line with previous studies, the students with MLD held reduced peer acceptance, had fewer friendships, and engaged less often in social interactions with peers than their typically developing classmates on both administrations. However, students with MLD held positive perceptions of social self-concept and friendship quality, with the two measures being positively associated. At T2, students with MLD reported poorer socio-emotional skills, which were positively correlated with their perceptions of both social self-concept and friendship quality. The paper concludes by outlining the importance of supporting students’ socio-emotional development through implementing relevant school-based interventions.

Differentiated instruction (DI) is an inclusive teaching approach that recognises and values student differences. Teachers teaching in inclusive schools practise DI to accommodate students with special educational needs and disabilities. However, no research has yet been conducted to explore teachers’ perceptions of DI in Bhutan. The purpose of this quantitative study is to explore teachers’ perceptions of DI and the differences in their perceptions based on demographic variables. Data were collected via an online survey from 185 teachers in 19 inclusive schools and were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicated that the majority of teachers had favourable perceptions of DI. No significant perceptual differences were found on qualifications and teaching experiences. However, special education teachers’ perceptions of DI were significantly higher than general education teachers (M = 4.14, SD = .37), (M = 3.89, SD = .41), respectively, t(183) = 4.194, p = .000, and trained teachers’ perceptions of DI were also found to be significantly higher than untrained teachers (M = 4.09, SD = .39), (M = 3.81, SD = .40), respectively, t(183) = 4.090, p = .000. The implications of the research findings are discussed with recommendations for further research in this area.

The present research attempted to examine the relative importance of student-related and school-related factors in accounting for teacher efficacy in inclusive education. The research adopted a predictive research design, and the sample of the research consisted of teachers (N = 292) working in public middle schools in the province of Niğde in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. To determine the factors influencing teacher efficacy in inclusive education, Teacher Demographic Information Questionnaire and Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices scale were used. In the research, multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine how well each set of independent variables — student-related factors and school-related factors — predicted teacher efficacy in inclusive education. According to the findings, student-related and school-related factors significantly influence teacher efficacy in inclusive education. Regarding the student-related factors, parental involvement, among other variables, was the most substantial predictor of teacher efficacy in inclusive education. Also, in terms of school-related factors, class size was the most substantial predictor of teacher efficacy in inclusive education.

This article explores the extent to which the right to basic education of learners with disabilities in South Africa was guaranteed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It uses the Centre for Child Law v Minister of Basic Education (Centre for Child Law) as the main canvas for discussion. It argues that, notwithstanding its normative compliance with the international regime of the right to an inclusive basic education, the government has failed learners with disabilities during COVID-19. An examination of Centre for Child Law reveals that, not only did the government's directions for the phased return to school exclude learners with disabilities, they also required the closure of special schools where compliance with social distancing rules was impossible. This violated the right to inclusive education and substantive equality of learners with disabilities and highlighted the need to advance these rights through reasonable accommodation initiatives.

Inclusive education workforce capability is the ability of the education workforce to meet individual student learning needs, regardless of educational context. In this study, we investigated the perceptions of 12 principals in Australian education settings on their views about roles and responsibilities related to the workforce’s preparedness for inclusive education. We used thematic analysis to identify 9 major themes and 3 subthemes across the 3 roles about which participants were asked: the principal’s role, the system’s role, and the teacher registration boards’ role. The findings indicated a number of areas of concern for these principals about ensuring the capability of the education workforce in the context of extensive student diversity. In summary, results indicated that principals, systems, and teacher registration boards each have a role in building inclusive education workforce capability, with a coordinated effort more likely to bring Australia closer to its pledge of inclusive education for all students.