Promoting Collaborative Learning Cultures to Help Teachers Support Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Advancing Inclusive and Special Education in the Asia-Pacific)

This book goes through the changing pattern of various stages of teacher education development in Autism Spectrum Disorder, and then analyses the factors bearing on them. It presents a multifaceted approach in understanding the subject, as well as providing the current practice of teacher development for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This book suggests a system of professional development that builds on the principles of implementation science is most likely to lead to the adoption and use of innovations necessary to improve the quality of special education services. Implementation science emphasizes the systematic delivery of evidence-based practices. This book gives hints to educators and serves as a useful reference in the delivery of high quality professional development programmes.

Cici Sze-Ching Lam, EdD, is a registered educational psychologist (Hong Kong Association of Education Psychologists). She is an honorary research associate at the Centre for Advancement in Inclusive and Special Education at the University of Hong Kong and former Senior Lecturer of the Department of Special Education and Counselling at the Education University of Hong Kong. She has had extensive experience in teaching and staff development in special/inclusive education in tertiary education. Her research interests are in the area of education for teaching professions in special and inclusive education, with a special interest in supporting inquiry approach to enhance experiential learning. She has been part of numerous large-scale research projects and has delivered training to parents and teachers for enhancing children’s emotional and social skills. She served on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Curriculum Development Council Committee on Special Educational Needs and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority as an expert panel member. Michael Arthur-Kelly, as an Honorary (a Conjoint) Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, is focusing his energies on international collaborations with colleagues in his field around the world, centred on inclusive evidence-based practices. He has conducted applied research in a range of areas in disability and special education including communication intervention for people with severe disability and staff training in managing challenging behaviour. He is internationally known for his research on behaviour state assessment protocols for people with multiple and severe disability. In 2009, with Professor Phil Foreman, he conducted an evaluation of educational programs for the Alice Betteridge School, part of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, and in that year he also contributed to the Review of Special Education in the ACT, led by Professor Tony Shaddock. Throughout 2013-2019 he served as a Subject Area Expert with Price Waterhouse Coopers and Monash University in the federally funded analyses of Nationally Consistent Collection of Data about Students with Disabilities, a leading-edge project designed to assist in understanding the support needs of students with disabilities across and within school sectors in Australia.