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This paper reports on a participatory action research project that investigated how a resource called the Index for Inclusion was used by a secondary school community to improve school connectedness at a whole school level. The researchers worked with the Australian case study school over one year to engage in review, development, and change. This paper reports on the procedure of working with the School Connectedness Committee through the five phases of the participatory action research. Data are organised under the theme of 'building community' with the sub-themes of 'positive relationships with staff' and 'student leadership'. The findings from this case study indicate that the implementation of the five phases of the Index for Inclusion can support a whole school approach to build a sense of community that supports young people to be more connected to their school.

Inclusive education is central to achieving high-quality education for all students and is a recognised commitment of the Australian government under international human rights law. However, Australia's lack of commitment to move away from segregation is reflected in its persistence in maintaining and funding segregated (special) settings. Queensland led the way with the introduction of an inclusive education policy in 2018; nonetheless, this does not go far enough, as there is no commitment to diminish segregated schooling for students with disability. This lack of action works against the effective implementation of the policy. Using the "Framework of Drivers for and Barriers to the Closure of Special Schools," we conducted a thematic analysis focussing on societal, systemic, school and family drivers for and barriers to educational desegregation. Our findings indicate where and why discrimination, segregation and exclusion remain strongly embedded in our society and education system. We provide recommendations for future reforms to the Disability Standards for Education in Australia.

Tackling mental health difficulties in adolescents on the autism spectrum requires a comprehensive prevention approach. A 3-year multisite proof-of-concept longitudinal study implemented an evidence-based multilevel resilience intervention in schools to promote protective factors at the adolescent, parent, and school level. The intervention, consisting of the adolescent, parent and teacher components of the Resourceful Adolescent Program--Autism Spectrum Disorder (RAP-ASD) augmented with the Index for Inclusion, was implemented in 6 secondary schools with 30 adolescents with an autism diagnosis in Grades 7 and 8, 31 parents of 23 of the adolescents, and school staff. The intervention was implemented with good validity and acceptability. Quantitative data from adolescents and parents were analysed using the Reliable Change Index, and qualitative data were analysed using Consensual Qualitative Research. Triangulated quantitative and qualitative outcomes from the majority of adolescents and their parents showed some evidence for promoting resilience for adolescents with a diagnosis or traits of autism, as reflected in reliable improvements in coping self-efficacy and school connectedness, and a reduction in anxiety symptoms and emotional and behavioural difficulties. A reliable improvement in depressive symptoms was more modest and was only achieved by a small minority of adolescents. This multilevel, strength-focused, resilience-building approach represents a promising and sustainable school-based primary prevention program to improve the quality of life for adolescents on the spectrum by promoting their mental health and providing their families with much needed support.

Implementing inclusive education requires on-going commitment to teachers' professional learning. One way of implementing professional learning is to develop learning communities based on Lave and Wenger's ideas of situated learning and learning as social practice. Learning communities, drawing on models of Professional Learning Communities and communities of practice, were designed to build capacity for inclusive teaching in two rural schools in Australia and a peri-urban school in South Africa. This paper reports on a multi-case study that involves a cross-case analysis of these three learning communities. We demonstrate that across the three cases, responsiveness to contextual exigencies matters, expertise matters and supportive networks matter. These findings are further illuminated by complexity theory which draws attention to learning communities operating at the confluence of a number of interacting systems, as well as the possibility of change where teacher learning occurs through the recontextualisation of knowledge and learning across boundaries. Our findings support situated learning that values collaboration to develop social and inclusive cultures and practice in schools. The findings also have the potential to inform planning for professional learning for inclusive education.

Many students on the autism spectrum attend mainstream schools and face challenges coping with the demands of this complex environment. Education in rural and remote locations poses additional challenges due to limited access to additional resourcing, specialised support, and services. This case study describes a problem-solving, collaborative approach providing rural and remote educators with additional direct support and services tailored to meet the individualised and complex learning needs of students on the autism spectrum in the classroom. The Tele-Classroom Consultative (TCC) approach involved a multidisciplinary team working face-to-face and remotely with the school community to deliver a cost-efficient professional support service. Data from semi-structured interviews with the teacher, parent, and school principal were analysed using the Index for Inclusion as a framework to show how the TCC approach enabled educators to implement inclusive approaches in rural and remote settings. Findings indicate that this method has potential for schools in rural and remote locations to meet the needs of all students, including those on the autism spectrum.

The United Nations has called upon Governments that are signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) to adopt practical but progressive systems to transfer resources from segregated settings/special schools into mainstream schools. What will this mean for Australia's special schools, particularly given their significant rise in enrolments over the past decade? What will it mean for the education of Australian students with disability? In this paper, we examine recent Government reviews/inquiries into the education of Australian students with disability to determine whether future planned actions align with Australia's international obligations to move away from segregated schooling. We conclude by examining both the barriers and the potential for providing a high-quality education system that realises the UN's commitment towards inclusive schools and societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an absence of research into online friendships and video gaming activities of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this article we describe how friendships of students with ASD were developed in an online multiplayer context using the popular sandbox game, Minecraft. Multimodal analysis of the data demonstrated that online multiplayer gaming supported students' use of speech to engage in conversations about their friendships, and to share gaming experiences with their offline and online friends. Online gaming enabled students to visually gather information about their friends' online status and activities, and to engage in the creative and adventurous use of virtual images and material representations with friends. Despite the benefits for friendships, students with ASD experienced difficulties in friendships in multimodal ways. Notably, students engaged in verbal disagreements about video gaming discourses, sought out activities associated with the themes of death and damage using written text, and tended to dominate shared creations of virtual images and their representation. The findings have implications to better support the friendships of students through inclusive literacy practices online.

Providing support for the educational needs of students on the autism spectrum continues to be challenging. Findings from this survey of parents, teachers and specialist staff highlight the need for collaboration between stakeholders who support the education of these students. The main themes to emerge were for school staff to be equipped with the knowledge and expertise to support each student in their learning, and for support with social/emotional needs. Findings highlighted the need for a transparent process for building school capacity to translate research and knowledge into practice by all stakeholders. This collective voice is important to ensure the needs of these students are identified and that appropriate support is implemented to maximise the educational success of these students.

High depression rates for adolescents with autism indicate a need for a comprehensive prevention approach. Parents can promote parent--child factors that buffer adolescents from depression. However, parenting adolescents with autism presents challenges which can diminish parental self-efficacy and mental wellbeing with potential negative sequelae for their adolescents. This proof-of-concept study investigated the value of adding a strength-focused parenting intervention to a depression-prevention intervention for adolescents with autism. A Consensual Qualitative Research framework analysed 15 parents' intervention experience. Parents reported that feeling isolated and unsupported by existing services motivated their participation, and they valued interacting with other parent participants. They also reported that the program enhanced wellbeing and parenting efficacy, reduced isolation, increased ability to parent calmly, and improved parent-adolescent relationships.

Previous research has focused on the prevalence of bullying of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with little attention given to its emotional effect. This mixed methods study examined levels of worry about bullying and bullying experiences reported by students and parents. To determine whether some students with ASD are differentially affected, we explored associations between students' characteristics (understanding of bullying, age and co-morbid conditions) and their bullying experiences and worries. Surveys exploring bullying experiences and levels of worry about bullying were completed by 89 students with ASD without intellectual disability aged 11-16 years and their parents. We also qualitatively explored parents' perceptions of how bullying affects their children, through semi-structured interviews of nine parents. Students with comorbid anxiety disorders were more likely to report face-to-face victimization and were more troubled by both face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying, while students with depression were more likely to report cyber victimization. Parental concerns included the impact of victimization on school attendance, self-esteem, mental health, social participation, academic performance, and behaviour. The significantly higher levels of worry about bullying and higher victimization rates reported by students with internalizing symptoms suggest that these students may be disproportionately at risk of psychological harm.

This article describes the support for social interactions received by three students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) through their multimodal engagements with "Minecraft®." The data were collected through at-screen observations and semi-structured interviews. Multimodal analysis of the data demonstrated that online multiplayer games supported social interactions through modes, such as speech, writing and gesture, and within physical and virtual spaces. The analysis revealed that online multiplayer games provided platforms for the students to use speech to engage in reciprocal conversations, to share information, to make requests, to give commands and to direct others. Additionally, screen-based written texts were used to attract the attention of others, send messages, communicate rules and maintain engagements with others within the students' physical and virtual worlds. Furthermore, the findings showed that online multiplayer games supported the students' uses, interpretations and mirroring of gestures for social interactions. The findings have implications for providing opportunities to support social interactions in multimodal ways that social spaces in face-to-face and offline contexts do not allow. The findings offer implications for targeting the students' interests in online multiplayer games to support their capacity to initiate and sustain social interactions in inclusive educational settings.

Providing support for the educational needs of students on the autism spectrum continues to be challenging. Findings from this survey of parents, teachers and specialist staff highlight the need for collaboration between stakeholders who support the education of these students. The main themes to emerge were for school staff to be equipped with the knowledge and expertise to support each student in their learning, and for support with social/emotional needs. Findings highlighted the need for a transparent process for building school capacity to translate research and knowledge into practice by all stakeholders. This collective voice is important to ensure the needs of these students are identified and that appropriate support is implemented to maximise the educational success of these students., Author(s): Beth Saggers [sup.1] [sup.2] , Megan Tones [sup.1] [sup.2] , Jacqueline Dunne [sup.1] [sup.2] , David Trembath [sup.2] [sup.3] , Susan Bruck [sup.2] [sup.4] [sup.5] , Amanda Webster [sup.2] [...]

Students with ASC are at heightened risk for bullying and their understanding of bullying is known to protect them from involvement in it (Humphrey and Hebron 2015). However, only a handful of studies have examined how students with ASC understand traditional bullying and none of them focused on cyberbullying. To fill this gap, we investigated how traditional bullying and cyberbullying are understood from the perspectives of 89 students with ASC attending inclusive schools and 490 students without ASC. Twenty vignettes were used from (Campbell et al. 2017a), based on the Olweus (1999) definition of bullying and verified by a Delphi technique. In the majority of traditional bullying and cyberbullying vignettes, students with ASC made more accurate responses than inaccurate ones and demonstrated higher accuracy rates than students without ASC. Findings of linear multiple regression analyses pointed out ASC status as a predictive variable for understanding both types of bullying, along with students' age for understanding cyberbullying. The findings highlight the ability rather than inability to understand bullying in students with ASC. It is therefore critical to include the voices and experiences of students with ASC in our research endeavour.

In this qualitative study, we explored the perspectives of 10 adolescents with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their experiences of bullying. Through individual semistructured interviews, they were asked to describe their understandings and experiences of bullying. Details of their experiences are described as well as the perceived impact on the students and their schooling. Data analysis revealed a number of common experiences including high rates of traditional bullying and more specifically verbal bullying, with fewer incidents of cyberbullying reported. In support of literature in the area, the results of the study indicate that bullying can be a significant inhibitor, which may prevent students with ASD from taking full advantage of their schooling. Listening to and reflecting on the voices and personal stories of adolescent students with ASD is critically important for developing more supportive approaches to their education and needs. The reports of bullying by students on the autism spectrum emphasises the need for more effective interventions and management strategies to be implemented in a whole-school approach as well as targeted strategies to prevent bullying experiences for this particular population of students.

All forms of bullying, physical, verbal, social, and cyber, are prevalent among youth worldwide. An especially vulnerable population for involvement in bullying is students with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although there are some studies that have investigated bullying in these students, many of these are beset by methodological issues. We surveyed 104 students with ASD on their bullying experiences in all 4 forms of bullying and examined their roles as victim, perpetrator, and bully-victim, comparing them with a group of typically developing students matched for age and gender. It was found that students with ASD reported signifcantly more traditional victimisation (physical, verbal, and social) than their typically developing peers. Cyberbullying victimisation was similar for the 2 groups. There were no differences between the groups on traditional bullying perpetration; however, typically developing students reported more cyberbullying perpetration behaviours. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.

Accumulating evidence suggests that the prevalence of bullying is significantly higher for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) than for typically developing students. Additionally, the prominence and growth of social networking and resultant focus on cyberbullying in the last 10 years has added a new dimension to the traditional definitions, environments and experiences of bullying. This paper describes current anti-bullying strategies and the legal climate in regard to bullying in Australia. It then reports on interviews with 10 students with ASD and their parents, and discusses recommendations based on their perceptions for dealing with bullying in schools. Data analysis indicated that both students and parents made a range of recommendations to increase awareness of bullying; improve policies and procedures that can be more clearly communicated to students, teachers and parents; and support programmes that develop communication and relationship building within families and in schools to both prevent bullying and provide coping strategies to deal with bullying if it occurs. Parents also called for schools to give harsher penalties for offenders, particularly repeat offenders. These student and parent recommendations may contribute to the development of school and government policy and practice to help reduce the incidence of all forms of bullying in schools.

High depression rates for adolescents with autism indicate a need for a comprehensive prevention approach. Parents can promote parent-child factors that buffer adolescents from depression. However, parenting adolescents with autism presents challenges which can diminish parental self-efficacy and mental wellbeing with potential negative sequelae for their adolescents. This proof-of-concept study investigated the value of adding a strength-focused parenting intervention to a depression-prevention intervention for adolescents with autism. A Consensual Qualitative Research framework analysed 15 parents' intervention experience. Parents reported that feeling isolated and unsupported by existing services motivated their participation, and they valued interacting with other parent participants. They also reported that the program enhanced wellbeing and parenting efficacy, reduced isolation, increased ability to parent calmly, and improved parent-adolescent relationships., Author(s): Ian M. Shochet [sup.1] [sup.2] , Beth R. Saggers [sup.2] [sup.3] , Suzanne B. Carrington [sup.2] [sup.3] , Jayne A. Orr [sup.1] [sup.2] , Astrid M. Wurfl [sup.1] [sup.2] [...]