Despite inclusive education (IE) policies and legislation being introduced in South Africa (SA), learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are still placed in autism-specific public and private schools. Limited data are available on who makes use of the two different types of schools. Results may provide information on the profiles and education of learners with ASD in Gauteng schools.
A quantitative, cross-sectional, comparative research design was used to compare the profiles of autism-specific public with autism-specific private schools and learners in Gauteng Province.
The research was conducted in two autism-specific public and two private schools.
Two survey questionnaires were used to collect data from four principals of two autism-specific public and two autism-specific private schools and 150 caregivers of learners attending the participating schools.
Results showed that because of their size autism-specific public schools make a significant contribution to the education of learners with ASD in Gauteng, compared to autism-specific private schools. Autism-specific public schools offer more therapy services than the autism-specific private schools, despite lower fees than autism-specific private schools. Significantly more black learners attend autism-specific public schools than autism-specific private schools. Regardless of the differences in population groups across the participating schools, the mean age when caregivers became concerned about their child’s development was similar across the two types of schools. Learners enrolled at the autism-specific private schools were diagnosed with ASD earlier than learners enrolled at the autism-specific public schools. Also, they commenced school earlier than the learners in the autism-specific public schools. Lastly, three of the four principals expressed a preference that learners with ASD be placed in autism-specific schools.
The results highlight the need to raise awareness of ASD symptoms among parents with young children in all communities and to determine the barriers that hinder IE for learners with ASD in SA.
In South Africa (SA), educational placement for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pertinent topic in light of the inclusive education (IE) policy recommending that all learners should be educated in the least restrictive environment (Department of Education [DoE]
Barriers to the effective implementation of IE include a lack of teacher capacity, limited financial resources, poverty and the negative attitudes towards disability in general (Bornman & Rose
Currently, there are only a few autism-specific
A quantitative, cross-sectional, comparative research design was used to compare the profiles of autism-specific
Although there are no official statistics available on how many learners with ASD are being accommodated for in autism-specific and mainstream schools, it seems that the majority school-going age children with ASD are accommodated in autism-specific schools (Evans
The participants in the study included four principals of the autism-specific
All four participating principals were female South African citizens with a post-secondary attainment level of either a degree or a postgraduate teaching qualification. All four principals had more than 25 years of teaching experience. The majority of the 150 caregivers in both the autism-specific
Different questionnaires were distributed to the principals and the caregivers. The first questionnaire was completed by the four principals and the second questionnaire was distributed to the caregivers of the 541 learners attending the four designated autism-specific schools. To establish the reliability and validity of the two questionnaires, the researchers conducted a pilot study in an autism-specific school. Fifteen caregivers and one principal completed and returned the pilot questionnaires, and the necessary changes were made. The questionnaire to the principals focussed on information about the school and included questions about when the school was established, age ranges of the learners, admission criteria of the school, school fees, therapeutic services offered by the school, number of learners the school can accommodate, number of learners currently attending the school, number of names on the waiting list, teacher–learner ratio and the principal’s preference regarding IE and autism-specific education. The caregiver survey included questions about gender, population group, age of child when parent became concerned about development, age when diagnosed and when admitted to school. We received the self-completed questionnaires back from the four principals and a total of 150 (27.2%) questionnaires from caregivers. Caregiver questionnaires were assigned to one of two groups according to the type of school the learner was attending: group 1 (public) (
Comparisons between the two autism-specific
Ethical Clearance was obtained from the University of Pretoria (Reference number: 28024967 [GW20160702HS]) and written permission from the Department of Basic Education and the principals of the autism-specific
The results are presented according to the study objectives. Firstly, differences and similarities in the profiles of the participating autism-specific schools are depicted in
Profiles of the participating autism-specific schools.
Schools | Public |
Private |
||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
1.1 Date when schools were established | 1973 | 2004 | 1975 | 2006 |
1.2 Age ranges of learners in the schools | 3–18 | 3–21 | 3–10 | 2–11 |
1.3 Admission requirements of the schools | Child had to be diagnosed with ASD and caregivers had to be working or living in the school’s catchment area | Child had to be diagnosed with ASD |
||
1.4 Monthly school fees | Mean South African Rand ( |
Mean |
||
1.5 Therapy services included in school fees | Speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, psychology services and music therapy | Speech-language therapy, occupational therapy, psychology services, hippo therapy and music therapy | Speech-language therapy, occupational therapy and floortime therapy | Speech-language therapy (in groups) and occupational therapy (in groups) |
1.6 Number of learners the schools can accommodate | 116 | 350 | 30 | 45 |
1.7 Number of learners in the schools at the time of data collection | 116 | 350 | 12 | 41 |
1.8 Number of names on the waiting list of the schools | 16 | 16 | 0 | 0 |
1.9 Number of teachers in the schools | 14 | 45 | 2 | 5 |
1.10 Teacher–learner ratio | 1:7 | 1:7.5 | 1:6 | 1:8.2 |
1.11 Gender of learners in schools | ||||
Male | ||||
89 | 23 | 14 | 8 | |
% | 88.1 | 92.0 | 93.3 | 88.9 |
Female | ||||
12 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
% | 11.9 | 8.0 | 5.7 | 11.1 |
Male-to-female ratio | 7.4:1 | 11.5:1 | 14.0:1 | 8.0:1 |
1.12 Population distribution of learners in the schools | ||||
Black | ||||
98 | 15 | 7 | 8 | |
% | 97.1 | 65.2 | 46.8 | 88.9 |
White | ||||
1 | 7 | 5 | 0 | |
% | 0.99 | 30.4 | 33.3 | 0.0 |
Asian/Indian | ||||
1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
% | 0.99 | 0.4 | 13.3 | 11.1 |
Mixed race | ||||
1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
% | 0.99 | 0.0 | 6.6 | 0.0 |
As can be seen in
The autism-specific
In both the autism-specific
The results show that the monthly school fees in autism-specific
Statistically significant differences were found when comparing the therapy services included in the school fees of the autism-specific
As can be seen in
As was to be expected there were more teachers in the autism-specific
Although no statistically significant differences were found when comparing the gender of the learners in the autism-specific
The majority of learners in both the autism-specific
Profiles of learners in group 1 (
Characteristic | Category | Frequency |
Significance |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Group 1 |
Group 2 |
|||||||
% | SD | % | SD | |||||
2.1 Age (months) when caregivers became concerned about child’s development | < 47 months | 120 | 95.2 | - | 24 | 100.0 | - | 0.590 |
> 48 months | 6 | 4.8 | - | 0 | 0.0 | - | ||
Mean age (in months) | 26.2 | - | 10.0 | 26.3 | - | 15.2 | ||
2.2 Age (months) when child was diagnosed with ASD | < 47 months | 76 | 60.3 | - | 17 | 70.8 | - | 0.368 |
> 48 months | 50 | 39.7 | - | 7 | 29.2 | - | ||
Mean age (in months) | 47.9 | - | 25.2 | 42.7 | - | 10.7 | ||
2.3 Age (years) when child was admitted to autism-specific school | < 3.9 years | 12 | 9.5 | - | 7 | 29.2 | - | 0.015 |
> 4.0 years | 114 | 90.5 | - | 17 | 70.8 | - | ||
Mean age (in years) | 5.7 | - | 1.9 | 4.1 | - | 1.1 |
SD, standard deviation; ASD, autism spectrum disorder.
, Statistically significant association (
Results in
No statistically significant differences were noted between the autism-specific
Although no statistically significant differences were found between the age when caregivers became concerned about their child’s development and the mean age of ASD diagnosis, the results in
Of the four schools, only one principal indicated that she preferred that learners with ASD be included in mainstream schools. This principal was of the opinion that learners with ASD will benefit from socially interacting with their typically developing peers, and show improved behaviour and academic performance (Kasari & Rotherham-Fuller
The study is subject to a few limitations. Firstly, the researchers relied solely on information obtained from the questionnaires completed by the caregivers of the learners in autism-specific
Data obtained from this study can be used as reference for future studies to track changes in ASD education trends in SA or similar countries. Such research may improve early ASD management, determine how many children with ASD are in the mainstream and special educational needs schools and identify how to better support learners, caregivers, teachers and principals in autism-specific schools. Also, homeschooling for learners with ASD should be further investigated. It is important to promote targeted awareness about ASD among the general public by developing ongoing ASD information training programmes. The successful inclusion of learners with ASD and principals’ preferences towards the inclusion of learners with ASD in mainstream schools should be investigated further in SA. It is essential that autism-specific
In this article, we focussed on comparing the differences between autism-specific
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their generous time and insightful comments.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
S.E. was the primary author and compiled the complete document based on doctoral degree research. A.K. was the supervisor and provided continuous input and internal review of this article. J.v.d.L. was the co-supervisor and provided continuous input and internal review of this article.
This research was funded by the University of Pretoria Postgraduate Bursary.
Data are available upon request from the corresponding author.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors.