Attitudes of educators towards autistic children in developing countries: Inclusive Education Perspective

Autism spectrum disorder is a common and important developmental condition requiring lifelong support with impact on communication, social interaction and with significant financial burden. Teacher’s attitudes, sentiments and concerns are valid determinants of success for inclusive education. Participation of educators for inclusive education of individuals with autism spectrum disorder is essential and with research gap in the area current study was conducted to evaluate the sentiments, attitudes and concerns of educators in inclusive education towards the children with Autism. This cross sectional study using convenience sampling recruited N=60 educators of inclusive education with at least a year of experience, of both genders & aged between 20-50 years from Lahore Autism Center, Autism Resource Centre, Dimensions, Lahore from July to December 2021. The statistical analysis conducted utilizing SPSS-23. Overall, most of the educators have positive attitudes, concerns and sentiments regarding the inclusive education for individuals with Autism spectrum disorder with strong positive correlation between total mean SACIE-R scores with Sentiments, concerns & attitudes, however no significant association was present between the factors sentiments, concerns and attitudes. These findings in the local context can help guide policy makers to plan future strategies for implementation of inclusive education and paving the way for further research while aligning with SGDs for the stakeholders. Since, sample was collected from one city, hence findings cannot be generalized. Similar studies comprising a large sample from all the provinces is recommended.