TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES FOR INCLUDING STUDENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS IN MAINSTREAM CLASSROOMS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON AUTISTIC LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are increasingly attending mainstream classes. As a result, teachers are faced with the challenge of using effective strategies to meet the needs of these students in the learning environment. The purpose of this paper was to investigate effective strategies used by English teachers in teaching English to learners with autism in order to improve their reading comprehension. This qualitative study relied on a purposive sample of ۱۶ teachers who dealt with autistic learners in mainstream classrooms and dealt with four middle schools in which autistic students attended mainstream classes. The participants were ten male and six female teachers, aged ۳۰-۳۸, who had at least five years of experience with autistic learners in mainstream classrooms. Data were collected through interviews and observations. Analysis of the qualitative data using content analysis revealed that the mass of participants was related to three main macro strategies, including priming, prompt delivery, and visual schedules. In fact, the results of the study were consistent with the effective methods for autism inclusion suggested by Crosland and Dunlap (۲۰۱۲), although there existed slight differences when considering the context in which the present study was conducted. The findings of this study benefit English language teachers and autistic language learners by shedding light on the strategies that can be effective in the inclusion of autistic learners in mainstream discourse by improving their reading comprehension skills.Theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study are further discussed in the article.

کلیدواژه ها:

autism spectrum disorders ، mainstream classrooms ، reading comprehension ، strategies ، Iranian EFL teachers