Nah, Yong Hwee

It has been reported that there is a rise in the number of individuals being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Singapore along with evolving changes in public awareness, attitudes, and levels of financial support occurring in the field in recent years. As such, this column presents the current status and issues related to the identification, provision of early intervention services, education, and transition into youth/adults for individuals with ASD in Singapore. Additional needs and future recommendations are also included.

Purpose Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have challenging behaviours that can create significant teaching challenges in group settings such as in mainstream pre-school inclusive settings. This study aims to identify and understand, from the perspectives of mainstream pre-school teachers in Singapore, the type of common challenging behaviours observed in pre-schoolers (mean age = 4.5 years, SD = 1.1, range = 3-6) with ASD. Design/methodology/approach Participants consisted of 62 teachers (mean age = 35.8 years; SD = 10.8) teaching in mainstream pre-school centres located in Singapore completed an open-ended survey. Twelve codes were generated and served as guidelines for coding the qualitative data. Codes with similar themes were then grouped to form four construct categories: social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours, attention and learning and others.

Findings Results indicated that difficulty with change/transition and social/peer interaction were the most concerning issues across all settings, whereas “lesson time” and “circle time” were the two most common activities/settings in which the concerns were reported by teachers. Originality/value Findings from this paper may add to the limited research looking at the challenging behaviours exhibited by children with ASD in mainstream pre-school settings in Singapore. Understanding the type of challenging behaviours presented in pre-schoolers with ASD and the activities/settings in which these behaviours occur may help the teachers to link the difficulties to specific interventions to further support their inclusion in a mainstream pre-school setting.

Background The number of autistic students enroling into universities and completing a higher education qualification is increasing. They would have to decide whether to disclose their diagnosis in order to receive appropriate and adequate support or not to share their diagnosis due to possible stigmatisation faced by them. This study examined the effect of labels (‘Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)’ or ‘Special Needs’ [SN]) used on university students’ openness towards autistic peers. Method 121 university students (43 males, 78 females; age range = 18–26) were randomly assigned to read one of three conditions with student characters identified as (1) having ASD or (2) SN; or (3) not identified with any label. They rated their openness towards the featured student and completed an ASD knowledge survey. Result Participants reported a greater level of openness toward vignettes characters with the ASD label and SN label as compared to vignettes characters with no label (with a large effect size). However, openness towards ASD and SN labels were not different. Knowledge of ASD accounted for a small but significant variance (3.3 %) of how university students rated the behaviours in the vignettes. Conclusion We proposed that the present findings may serve as an encouragement to autistic individuals in local universities to consider disclosing their ASD diagnosis to the people around them and at the same time, underscore the importance of greater public education on ASD, to create a more supportive environment for autistic individuals to thrive in.

Culturally bounded in nature, adaptive behavior is the degree to which a person meets the requirements of personal independence and social responsibilities. This study aimed to develop a computerized adaptive test (CAT) of a culturally appropriate adaptive behavior measure (i.e., the Activities and Participation Rating Scale [APRS]) in the Singapore context for children aged 7 to 12 years, that is, the CAT-APRS-Primary. In Study 1, an item bank consisting of 310 adaptive skills was developed and piloted among 56 caregivers. In Study 2, the refined 310 items were calibrated using Rasch analysis among 352 caregivers. After the removal of five poor items based on the Rasch analysis, the finalized 305 items were used for the CAT development, with these items showing good Rasch person and item fit statistics. Preliminary utility of the CAT-APRS-Primary was established, with participants completing 24 items on average. Limitations and implications for future research were discussed.

Research has shown that the awareness of an individual's ASD diagnosis is linked to more positive affective responses towards their behaviour. For example, in Brosnan & Mills (2016) and Butler & Gillis (2011), college students were found to have more positive responses towards someone demonstrating social difficulties or difficulties with changes when the person is labelled with an ASD, than when they were labelled as a typical student.
In Singapore, despite the availability of specialised services and resources in mainstream schools for students with special educational needs, as well as greater ASD awareness and training for teachers, parents may still be hesitant to disclose their child's diagnosis of ASD, for fear of stigma or negative attitudes from teachers and peers.
Despite the concerns of labelling and prior studies on the effect of diagnostic labels on peers/caretakers, no study has sought to investigate the effects of diagnostic labels on teachers' perceptions of ASD-typical behaviour in mainstream school settings, within the context of students with ASD. As such, this proposed study aims to examine this relationship.

The aim of this study is to examine the online learning experiences of university students with Special Educational Needs (SEN), and how their experiences might differ from their typically developing peers. Fifty typically developing students (mean age = 22; 29 females) and 31 students with SEN (mean age = 22; 15 females) from a local university in Singapore participated in an online survey. Both groups reported significant increase in the proportion of online learning after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Both groups reported being moderately positive about their online learning experiences, with no significant difference between the groups (either before or after the outbreak). For both groups, Learning Activity Management System (LAMS), pre-recorded lectures, online finals/quizzes, live lectures, online assignments, and online tutorials were the common online learning formats. Laptop/desktop was the primary device used, and Zoom was the most preferred online learning software. The SEN group reported higher usage of technical accommodations. Accessibility was the top advantage of online learning reported by typically developing students while for students with SEN, it was flexibility. Lower social interaction was the top challenge encountered for both groups. These findings would be useful in making online learning more inclusive for everyone in university.

This study investigated how Singaporean children with high functioning autism (HFA) make social judgments and provide justifications for their responses. To develop the eight vignettes used in this study, 238 typically developing children rated the social appropriateness of 13 situations. Behaviors/scenarios that were considered as socially inappropriate by the majority of children were selected to be worded into vignettes which contained a probe after a sentence depicting a socially inappropriate event (test item) and a socially appropriate event (control item). For each vignette, participants were asked to rate the strangeness (on a 4-point Likert scale) of the test and control items. Justifications for each rating were also elicited. Fifteen children with HFA and 15 typically developing peers aged between 9 and 13 years participated in this study. Contrary to the hypotheses, children with HFA rated socially inappropriate behaviors in vignettes in a similar fashion as their typically developing peers on test items. In addition, they rated the control behaviors stranger as compared to their typically developing peers. Further analyses of the justifications for these ratings revealed that children with HFA had a higher tendency to provide a non-social or/and bizarre answers instead of justifying the inappropriateness appealing to social norms and conventions. At the same time, children with HFA also seemed to have difficulties in understanding control situations or normal behaviors. They produced a higher proportion of bizarre justifications as compared to the typically developing children. This study sheds light on the nature of difficulties in social perception that individuals with HFA have and highlights the differences in justifying behaviors in terms of social norms and rules as compared to typically developing individuals. Practical and theoretical implications of the findings were discussed and directions for future research were suggested.

This study explored factors associated with teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in delivering a Tier 2 Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)-based programme. Participants consisted of 103 teachers (mean age = 38.0 years, SD = 9.63) currently teaching in Singapore mainstream schools. Survey data on self-efficacy beliefs for teaching in general, teachers’ sources of self-efficacy beliefs, and demographic variables were collected. Participants also rated eight vignettes on how confident they would feel when required to deliver and facilitate sessions. Mastery Experience and self-efficacy beliefs for teaching in general were significant predictors. While quantitative results did not suggest that Vicarious Experience was a significant predictor, participants frequently highlighted qualitatively that opportunities to observe peers, professionals and other teachers with more experience, as well as role-play, would help them feel more confident to deliver such sessions. These results can be used to inform selection of educators for such a programme and in designing the training for these teachers.

Objective It has been suggested that gender stereotypes can influence social perception and how people perceive behaviours in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) based on the individual's gender. This study aimed to investigate the effect of student's gender on teachers' perceptions of ASD behaviours in regular school settings. Method The sample consisted of 60 primary school teachers with a mean of 11.82 years (SD = 7.34) of teaching experience. Participants read a total of 20 vignettes depicting students' behaviours and were asked to rate the featured student's behaviour using a 5-point Likert scale (i.e., 1 = Strongly Negative to 5 = Strongly Positive). The survey vignettes were presented in a randomised order and participants were randomly assigned to either the female gender group or the male gender group. Results Results indicated that teachers rated the male ASD student's social behaviours but not the repetitive and restricted behaviours significantly more negatively than the female ASD student. Using multiple regression analysis, teachers' prior awareness of ASD affected their ratings for the social behaviours. Conclusion Findings from this study would have implications for teacher training in understanding and supporting students with ASD.