2018 marks the 25th year anniversary of the implementation of the Disability Discrimination

Act (DDA) in 1992. A subordinate legislation under the DDA is the Disability Standards for

Education act, legislated and in force since 2005. These standards mean that by Australian

law, all schools are required to make their services accessible to any student, and have that

student not just attending physically, but be as academically and socially engaged as possible

(Round, Subban, & Sharma, 2016, p. 185). Yet the commitment of inclusion of students with

diverse learning needs into Australian mainstream classrooms is an enduring and fraught

process. After a quarter of a century those students with disabilities are still only half as

likely as their peers to complete Year 12 (Drummond, 2018). The inclusion of these students

in mainstream classrooms, including but not limited to those students who fall under the

recently broadened umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorder, is hindered by negative or

tentative teacher perspectives, and a perceived lack of training or development in

differentiated pedagogical approaches. Inclusion of individual diverse learners can be

improved by continued support and fostering of teachers’ positive attitudes through a whole

school culture committed to inclusion, facilitated by ongoing professional development and

building of teachers’ pedagogical toolboxes to improve their self-efficacy when it comes to

differentiation and accommodation for students with additional needs.

Inclusion in this context means that all students fully participate in all aspects of schooling

through internal school programming. Waitoller and King Thorius (2016) emphasise

Waitoller’s previous work in defining inclusion as a “continuous struggle toward (a) the

redistribution of quality opportunities to learn and participate in educational programs, (b) the

recognition and value of differences as reflected in content, pedagogy and assessment tools”

(pg. 368). Inclusion, as opposed to integration, aims away from the paradigm of diverse

learners needing to integrate to a ‘normal’ system, and towards a model where all are

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considered ‘normal’ and the strengths and needs of each unique individual are considered and

included (Konza, 2008, p. 39).

Inclusion is not synonymous with ‘integration’, as was previously used in language

surrounding students with diverse needs, as integration implies that the assistance comes

from outside of the school (Loreman, Deppeler, & Harvey, 2011, p. 3). Similar to policy

changes in the United States and the United Kingdom, Australia’s road to inclusion began

with integration in the 1970’s, where some but not all students with special needs joined so-

called regular classrooms, instigating an increased demand for pre-service teachers to be

trained in special education (Abawi & Oliver, 2013, p. 161). The 1970’s argument for

‘normalisation’ of people with special needs was highlighted by the term “social role

valorisation” which emphasised the fundamental right for all individuals to be a valued

member of their community (Konza, 2008, p. 39). In 1992, the Disability Discrimination Act

was legislated as the first national law designed to provide equality to Australians with a

disability. The impact of this Act on the Australian education system was distinguished by

the infamous case of Scarlett Finney vs The Hills Grammar School in 1997. The Hills

Grammar School declined her enrolment due to her having spina bifida, and they claimed to

not be able to accommodate her needs, resulting in the Commissioner finding them to have

discriminated against her due to her disability (McEwin, 2018). The language surrounding

this case is echoed in the Disability Standards for Education 2005 that a person with a

disability must be treated “on the same basis” as a person without a disability when it comes

to enrolment in an educational context and take into consideration “reasonable adjustment”

(Australian Government: Department of Education and Training, 2017, p. 9).

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While the federal Disability Standards for Education 2005 are reviewed every five years,

state governments continue to work on plans for inclusivity in their schools. The NSW

Department of Education has released a ‘Disability Inclusion Action Plan: 2016-2020’ which,

among other things, aims to improve “service delivery to students with disability in public

schools” (NSW Department of Education, 2018, p. 7). Inclusive education training is

currently a requirement of the Australian Professional Standards for Graduate teachers, and

teachers are expected to continue to actively meet these standards through pedagogical

knowledge, practice and engagement, including ongoing professional learning (Australian

Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), 2017). Additionally, the Nationally

Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCDD) is an Australian

Government initiative that collects data on categories of disability and adjustments applied

from all Australian schools to calculate and inform funding for support and resources for

students with diverse learning needs (Australian Government, 2018). The NCDD released

emergent data in 2016 after surveying 99.9% of Australian schools. Their data is

significantly different to other data collections as the definition of disability encompasses

more than just the medically diagnosed and is based on the Disability Discrimination Act.

These categories include physical, cognitive, sensory and social/emotional disabilities – of

which students with learning and communication difficulties are the largest groups (Meehan,

2016, p. 169) - and the data drills down into the educational adjustment delivered to these

individual students, identifying that 685, 911 Australian students (18.1% of the cohort)

received an educational adjustment to accommodate their disability and deliver quality

teaching (Education Council , 2016, p. 2).

Abawi and Oliver (2013) note that “Autism and related disorders were the most commonly

reported mental or behavioural disorders (in schools), which was a twofold increase since

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2003” (p. 160). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has become increasingly prevalent in

Western society, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics hazarding a guess that the recent

refinements to the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) to its most

recent edition, DSM V, would likely impact the incidence of reported Autism rates as ASD

has a widened scope (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). The 2015 data study showed an

estimate of a 42.1% increase in people identifying as having autism from a similar study in

2012 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017). These numbers include an estimated 83,700

school students, the majority of which reported difficulty at school – the most common being

fitting in socially, learning difficulties and communication difficulties (Australian Institute of

Health and Welfare (AIHW), 2018). These students reported adjustment or supported

learning through various unspecified resources, and all received either special tuition or

additional support through a counsellor or disability support person (Australian Institute of

Health and Welfare (AIHW), 2018).

Continued political emphasis on the inclusion of students with special needs is required to

ensure that all students are served equally in the educational services sector. While 2012

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reported that the majority of children identified as

having a disability were amalgamated into mainstream education classes (Meehan, 2016),

recent data indicates that there is a potentially concerning shift towards attending special

schools and away from classes in mainstream schools (Australian Government: Australian

Institute of Health and Welfare, 2017, p. 2).

Inclusion, as opposed to integration, aims away from the paradigm of diverse learners

needing to fit in to a ‘normal’ system, and towards a model where all are considered ‘normal’

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and the strengths and needs of each unique individual are considered (Konza, 2008, p. 39).

An initial step towards inclusive education needs to specifically address the perceptions of

teachers. Teachers enter the profession with an already established set of values, ideologies

and attitudes – but these may need to be adjusted to include the belief that all students have

the capacity to learn, and that they as the teacher can make a difference, with the right tools

available to them (Loreman, Deppeler, & Harvey, 2011, p. 47). Studies in the 1980s and

1990s indicate that many teachers felt that the main responsibility of teaching students with a

disability lay in the hands of the special education teacher, with integration into mainstream

classes being purely for socialisation purposes (Konza, 2008, p. 42). Unfortunately, these

beliefs have persisted into modern times, with Winzer (2007) commenting that “inclusion

remains better accepted in the concept rather than the practice” (Abawi & Oliver, 2013, p.

161), which is emphasised by MacFarlane and Woolfson (2013) remarking that while

teachers are for the most part quite positive about inclusion in theory, “at the same time

viewing its implementation as problematic” (p. 46). These enduring negative attitudes are

linked to concern from teachers about their own capacity to teach diverse learners.

As this self-belief or self-efficacy is a primary roadblock to inclusionary classrooms, it is

important that teachers – from pre-service to teachers with tenure – are not only instructed of

the pedagogical tools that best facilitate an inclusionary classroom, but also given the

confidence as to how to integrate these strategies (Abawi & Oliver, 2013, p. 161). Research

carried out by MacFarlane and Marks Woolfson (2013) indicates that teachers are more

inclusionary when their principal’s expectations are high, indicating that a holistic school

approach that is developed from the top down is imperative in inclusive schooling (p. 52). A

whole school mindset of inclusivity, including the broader school community such as parents

and other stakeholders, creates an environment that is open to embracing diversity in all

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forms (Loreman, Deppeler, & Harvey, 2011, p. 87). Collegial and collaborative teachers,

faculties and schools can work to encourage each other and gather advice on how best to

confidently and enthusiastically inspire students “with a slightly different learning profile”

(Pearce, 2009, p. 8). Teachers who are confident in their efficacy when accommodating the

needs of all learners have a flow-on effect to their teaching peers, and therefore have the

potential to “impact on the behaviours and attitudes on those around them” (Round, Subban,

& Sharma, 2016, p. 95).

This confidence can be enhanced by further developing teacher’s skills in differentiating their

instructional techniques to meet the learning needs of individual students. Carlson,

Hemmings, Wurf and Reupert (2012) identified the strategies of nominated effective

inclusive teachers and found that they all “employed feedback, elements of direct instruction,

questioning and cooperative learning strategies” (p. 11). These strategies are consistent with

the work of John Hattie and his recommendations for effective teachers of all students

(Carlson, Hemmings, & Wurf, 2012, p. 16). However, students with diverse learning needs

may need further assistance through a student-centred approach to differentiated instruction.

Differentiation considers the needs and strengths of the individual student and modifies or

adjusts curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment accordingly – with an emphasis on

creating opportunities for the unique student to develop cohesively alongside their peers (van

Kraayenoord, 2007, p. 392). Successful differentiation acknowledges and emphasises the

potential of the individual and that all individuals learn in different ways while maintaining a

collaborative classroom community (Westwood, 2001, p. 6 & 10). Differentiation is not just

for students with special needs, but all students, as teachers are tasked with “purposefully and

proactively think(ing) about how instruction could be more instructive to more kids” (Lavery

et. al. 2017, p. 127).

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These individual needs for diverse learners includes the unique experience of a student with

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A differentiated teaching approach for students with ASD

would consider what impacts on them the most in the classroom, for example their impaired

executive functioning which negatively “influences basic abilities such as attention, memory

and motor skills” (Costley, Clark, Keane, & Lane, 2012, p. 26). Adjustments or

differentiation for these students may include strategies such as: using visual supports; using

cues to transition between concepts, breaking down tasks into individual steps, and;

presenting information in a variety of modes (Australian Government Department of

Education and Training, 2014, p. 1). These tools can be used for any student but are

particularly useful to assist students with ASD as they consider students specific needs and

learning difficulties and enable them to be a valuable and engaged contributor to the inclusive

classroom.

As seen, the road to fully inclusive classrooms in Australia continues to be met with negative,

even fearful, attitudes by teachers who lack self-confidence. By adopting a whole-school

community approach to positive engagement with students with diverse needs, and

facilitating ongoing supportive training and experience in differentiation, teachers’ self-

efficacy should improve. With continued experience, training and optimistic attitudes

towards their own capacity to provide quality teaching to all students, teachers will be able to

expand their classroom strategies to include students of diverse learning needs.

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 Bibliography

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